Everyone involved in power electronics technology is talking about how digital control of power electronics provides significant advantages. The converter control can be flexible, reconfigurable and there may even be a price advantage in the controller technology. If you are frustrated at not having this digital control advantage then this digital control power electronics training workshop is for you.
Get the digital control advantage and do it
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It is true to say that some more recent converters such as the LLC and the LCL grid coupling filter can have their performance enhanced by using digital control. There are also possibilities to minimise the effect of the converter non-linearity and variation. All of these characteristics mean that the digital control of power may well be the panacea to power supply control. There is certainly significant publicity from the large power supply vendors trumpeting their new digital controllers and the great performance that these supplies give. These vendors have used their significant resources and time in developing and learning about the digital control of these new power supplies. Getting the information you need to do digital control is key to keeping up with and benefiting from the digital power electronics control.
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Given that digital control is perhaps a wave that will sweep over the power electronics world some people are saying that the traditional analogue controller is on its last legs. This “last days of analogue” prediction is probably unlikely as the power converter will always be a continuous analogue circuit. However the use of digital control does allow a significant part of the converter control to be implemented with software or firmware.
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When we worked in the motor speed drives industry in the nineties there was a trend to digital control in power electronics. The teleco power supply industry moved to digital control in the 2000s. If the same type of trend continues digital control may dominate completely. However there are still simple low cost DC drives where the price point is best met with analogue controls. There are large numbers of telco power supplies that have analogue control.
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The main and key reason that digital control of a power converter is a good way forward is that it provides flexibility. Flexibility is useful for a number of reasons. The first is that the function of the product can be changed by changing the firmware or the software. There is always verification and validation effort associated with flexibility but this effort is often worth bearing as a digital controller running in a programmable processor or FPGA. The second reason is the use of common processor parts across a number of products giving purchasing advantage. The third reason is that effectively the production repeat cost of firmware and software is zero. This is because typically the BOM cost of the software or firmware is usually zero rather than the code’s amortized development cost. There is also flexibility in the control approach itself. Software or firmware allows switching strategies to be changed for different converter operating conditions. Alongside this the switching instants themselves can be adjusted to minimise the switching loss. For applications where flexibility is not required then analogue control may be what is required. In these cases digital control may not be the best. It is always good to remember analogue control has many strengths.
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The key reasons for using digital control in power electronics are
There are some differences with a digital controlled converter compared with an analogue controlled. These differences can be problematic if you are not ready for them. Learning about these differences and what they mean in the development of power supplies is the key to being able to develop digitally controlled power converters. Click here to get the training workshop course outline.
The differences from analogue in using digital are
The limited number of digital bits means that there are quantisation, precision and noise issues that are not present in analogue.
The sampling action creates the possibility of aliasing, single sample noise and limited bandwidth. Increasing the sampling rate is always possible. For the same numeric precision increased sampling rate typically requires more digital bits.
Parts of the controller may well be implemented in software or firmware by an engineer who has very little experience with power electronics.
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All digital systems create a delay due to the processing time. This delay increases the difficulty in achieving loop stability. The course shows simple practical steps to deal with this.
The course is a four day training where the fundamentals of digital power electronics control are dealt with. The course is suited to those who are or will be working with digital power electronics. The emphasis of the course is to cover the necessary knowledge in a practical way that is based in solid theory. The course has a number of demonstrations and practical components. These include
Attending the course gives you clear step by step methods to
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Next course location:
Presenter Dr Hamish Laird
Who should attend:
Close a digital power converter feedback loop in a stable fashion by following repeatable easily understood steps. Understand what the effect digital control’s limited bandwidth, processing power, number of bits and dynamic range have in digital power electronic control. Understand the interaction of power electronics and digital control. This includes sampling and aliasing in the context of fixed and variable frequency switching power converters. Take away methods and steps to solve design issues such as one sample noise, precision limits in filters and controllers, non-linearity, quantisation and other digital effects.
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“I would highly recommend the ELMG digital control course to all power electronics engineers. What makes this course particularly valuable is in the practical approach and relevance to the control of power electronics. The topic of digital control is a very broad subject and hence the specific challenges and applicable tools are very different depending on the application details. Many digital control / DSP courses try to approach the topic from a very generic broad approach, treating all applications in the same way. The classic approach involves starting from a conventional analog control model and then adding ADC and DAC blocks to change between the analog and digital domains with a digital controller replacing the traditional analog controller. The problem with this classic approach is that it is not a practical or applicable method for designing high bandwidth controllers for use for the control of power converters. The ELMG digital control course specifically focuses on the control of power electronics and hence the course only considers concepts and techniques that are applicable to the control of power electronics. The course covers a wide range of digital control theory and introduces the power electronics engineer to all of the state of the art digital control concepts. This course is a must for any power electronics engineer who is involved in the digital control of power converters.”
Michael Harrison. Senior Director Power Conversion Strategy Enphase Energy Petaluma CA 94954 USA
Talk to someone who has attended the course? E-mail Enquiries@elmgdigitalpower.com and we will get you talking.
“I can highly recommend Hamish to learn from. Unlike many in the digital world, he has a wealth of industrial experience to bring to the class. It may come as a surprise to many, but loop compensation is but a small part of what is really important in the design of the power system. Many universities and much research focus on just this part when the real-world issues are much more important to solve.”
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Dr. Ray Ridley, President Ridley Engineering US and Ridley Engineering Europe |
Analogue control of power electronics makes it impossible to quickly change to way the control is done. Often modern high efficiency converters need a flexibility and configurability of control that cannot be done or even contemplated with analogue control. These challenges around the conflict between efficiency and control bandwidth are very real and can challenge and frustrate when your digital power development is not progressing. The big risk for engineering managers is the schedule miss or the failure to deliver the next high efficiency high performance converter. This course gets your people and you on the digital power track.
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