Current-mode control of DC-DC power converters:: a backstepping approach

Current-mode control is a robust industrial DC-DC power converter control scheme that has been successfully tested, is widely accepted, and is commonly implemented with conventional linear P and PI controllers. The need of more systematic designs with enhanced performance has motivated recent studies with linear and nonlinear advanced techniques, but the rigorous understanding and substantiation of the underlying key robust functioning capability are still lacking. In this paper, a constructive control approach is employed to study the current-mode control problem of a class of DC-DC power converters, yielding a cascade control design methodology with: a robust convergence criterion coupled with a systematic and transparent construction-tuning procedure, a rationale to explain the robust controller functioning, and a unified framework to interpret and compare the proposed controller with the existing conventional and advanced control designs. The implementation and functioning of the proposed control design is illustrated experimentally with a boost converter. Copyright (C) 2003 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.