| Digital Power Starter Kit 3 Firmware dsPIC33C Boost Converter Voltage Mode Control Example |

Power Supply Control

- DPSK3 Boost Converter Voltage Mode Control Loop Implementation
- Control Loop Block Diagram
- Control Loop Timing
- Control Loop Flow Chart
- Control Loop Firmware Implementation

This firmware demonstrates the implementation of a simple, single loop voltage mode controller used to regulate the constant output voltage of the on-board step-down converter of the Digital Power Starter Kit 3 (DPSK3). The implementation of the Voltage Feedback Loop requires one Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) input oversampling the output voltage of the converter and two PWM outputs (PWM high and PWM low) to drive the power converter half-bridge switch node in synchronous mode.

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Figure 1 shows the block diagram of the boost converter voltage mode controller, where the ADC input is used to sample the most recent level of the output voltage feedback signal. Once converted, the value is then compared against the internal reference value and the inverse of the deviation between reference and feedback (= error) is pushed through the discrete compensation filter.

In the Anti-Windup block, the output of the compensation filter is checked against user-specified minimum and maximum thresholds. Should any of these thresholds be exceeded, the controller output will be overwritten with the respective threshold value before being written directly to the PWM duty cycle register of the PWM logic.

Figure 1: Control Loop Block Diagram

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The single voltage loop controller is triggered by the PWM counter at the same time as the ADC is triggered. The control loop is executing the overhead code of calculating the first part of the compensation filter term (= A-Term) until the most recent ADC sample is available to be processed in the later part of the compensation filter term computation (= B-Term). This approach helps to shorten the overall response time of the controller measured between ADC trigger and write back event of the most recent controller result to the duty cycle register of the PWM generator. The new controller output value will then be divided by two and added to half of the period value to place the new ADC trigger point at 50% of the off-time. If the user has specified an additional offset to compensate FET driver propagation delays, this constant time-offset is also added before the ADC trigger location is updated. The the new duty cycle value will be updated immediately when the new value of the ADC trigger location is written to the PWM generator logic. By placing the ADC trigger point at 50% of the off time, the total control response is less than half a switching period, resulting in minimized phase erosion.

Figure 2: Control Loop Timing

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Figure 3 shows a typical flow chart of a discrete software feedback loop called at the desired control frequency. It covers the loop path from ADC trigger to PWM output shown in the block diagram above (see Figure 2) while supporting additional features like an Enable/Disable Bypass Switch or advanced features like Adaptive Gain Control (AGC).

- [green] boxes represent default building blocks
- [grey] boxes represent unused optional features
- [blue] boxes represent active optional features

Figure 3: Control Loop Flow Chart

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The compensation filter is based on an Infinite-Impulse-Response (IIR) filter computation, which breaks into two elements: -->

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Figure 4 shows a typical implementation of the power converter state machine and the high-speed control loop in a task scheduler based firmware environment.

- Real Time Control Loop and Low Level Drivers The control loop is called in an independent high priority Interrupt Service Routine (ISR) by the PWM module simultaneously with triggering the ADC input. Thus, the control loop is tightly coupled to the PWM switching signal and synchronized to the most recent ADC conversion process, allowing a highly deterministic arrangement of code execution, peripheral module activity and external analog circuit operation. The interrupt priority needs to be high enough to override all other software tasks of the firmware to ensure jitter-free execution of the control loop.
- Topology-Specific State Machine Library Each converter topology requires a specifically tailored configuration of related chip resources as well as start-up, control and monitoring procedures. Topology State Machine Libraries support a wide range of circuit configurations, control modes and functional features. Build-in peripheral configuration drivers are used to ease the configuration of required chip resources, such as number of PWM channels and their signal configuration, number of Analog-to-Digital (ADC) inputs, analog comparators, Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) channels, etc. All user configurations of a topology specific power converter are encapsulated in a comprehensive data object. This approach allows the definition of multiple power supplies of the same type being included, monitored and run independently from each other. Each of these power converter objects also include the declaration of the high-speed control loop object described above, enabling it to control peripherals and control loop code to be synchronized to time-critical states.
- Application Layer of the Power Supply Control Task The application layer of this task is the proprietary firmware component covering the application-specific configuration of library data objects and high-speed control loops. It also allows to add and tailor functions, which are not covered by the default features of library modules.
- Scheduler Level The scheduler level organizes all tasks of the firmware. Besides the power control and related fault handler task, this DPSK3 code example includes the on-board LC display data output, the on-board push-button control of the LC display screens and the on-board debugging LED, which are considered less time critical, low-priority tasks. The main task scheduler in this firmware example therefore supports two priority levels, one for power control and fault handling, executed at a rate of 10 kHz (= 100 us interval) and the low priority tasks, executed at rates between 0.5 ms and 250 ms.

Figure 4: Control Loop Firmware Implementation

More detailed information on the library implementation, such as task and library APIs, can be found in the chapter Software Overview on the left side of this window.

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