Review: Control Circuits in Power Electronics, practical issues in design and implementation

When it comes to the design of switching power supplies, there are a handful of basic topologies that engineers learn in their initial coursework. The difficulty comes in figuring out which topology to apply in specific situations and how to control outputs in a way that realizes what the application needs.

That’s the value of the recently published Control Circuits in Power Electronics. The 442-page book assumes the reader is familiar with basic switching power supply circuits and theory but must translate theory into practice. In that regard, it provides overviews of both analog and digital approaches to switch-mode control for a variety of schemes now widely applied in industry.

An example is that of PWM-based sliding-mode control schemes for dc/dc converters. This topic often can’t be found in basic switch-mode courses, and the Wikipedia page covering the subject dwells on hard-to-understand abstract math. When the book discusses sliding-mode control, it is in the context of real converter circuits. In addition to the general application of sliding controllers, one chapter covers sliding-mode control of PWM boost rectifiers as found in ac adjustable-speed drives. And there is plenty of math, but it is given in the context of how to realize practical implementations of sliding-mode circuits.

The book also covers classes of converter circuits that are either too new or too specialized to have their own Wikipedia page. An example is hysteretic controllers, so named because they modulate the power semiconductors in the switching circuit with a hysteresis comparator.

There is a fair amount of material on the kinds of power converters commonly used in renewable energy applications. Examples include multilevel converters, one-cycle controlled power inverters, grid-tied inverters for photovoltaic applications, and FPGA-DSP controllers for dc-dc converters that have enough voltage gain to boost PV cell voltages up to those necessary for grid connections.

A good bit of the book covers digital control techniques. Among the topics are digital signal processing boards as applied in three-phase unity power factor rectifiers.
Finally, the book devotes one section to new trends in control circuits for power electronics. This can be helpful for those who have a limited amount of time to figure out where the field is going; without compilations like this one, the alternative is to page through stacks of published research. Among the topics covered are IGBT gate drivers, integrated switched-capacitor converters, and three-phase power converters designed without employing rotating reference frames.

Control Circuits in Power Electronics, practical issues in design and implementation, edited by Miguel Castilla, published by Institution of Engineering and Technology, London, ISBN 978-1-84919-822-6 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-84919-823-3(PDF)