Control of a Multiphase Buck Converter, Based on Sliding Mode and Disturbance Estimation, Capable of Linear Large Signal Operation

Power-hardware-in-the-loop systems enable testing of power converters for electric vehicles (EV) without the use of real physical components. Battery emulation is one example of such a system, demanding the use of bidirectional power flow, a wide output voltage range and high current swings. A multiphase synchronous DC-DC converter is appropriate to handle all of these requirements. The control of the multiphase converter needs to make sure that the current is shared equally between phases. It is preferred that the closed-loop dynamic model is linear in a wide range of output currents and voltages, where parameter variations, control signal limits, dead time effects, and so on, are compensated for. In the case presented in this paper, a cascade control structure was used with inner sliding mode control for phase currents. For the outer voltage loop, a proportional controller with output current feedforward compensation was used. Disturbance observers were used in current loops and in the voltage loop to compensate mismatches between the model and the real circuit. The tuning rules are proposed for all loops and observers, to simplify the design and assure operation without saturation of control signals, that is, duty cycle and inductor current reference. By using the proposed control algorithms and tuning rules, a linear reduced order system model was devised, which is valid for the entire operational range of the converter. The operation was verified on a prototype 4-phase synchronous DC-DC converter.