IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 39, NO.

6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2003 1803

Synergetic Control for DC–DC Boost Converter:

Implementation Options
Enrico Santi, Senior Member, IEEE, Antonello Monti, Senior Member, IEEE, Donghong Li, Student Member, IEEE,
Karthik Proddutur, Student Member, IEEE, and Roger A. Dougal, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—The theory of synergetic control was introduced in a important advantages of this approach are order reduction,
power electronics context in a previous paper. In this paper, we re- decoupling design procedure, and insensitivity to parameter
view the theory, then focus on some practical aspects with reference changes. Disadvantages are the need of a fairly high bandwidth
to both simulations and actual hardware. In particular, we address
management of the current limit condition and solve it with several for the controller, which makes digital control solutions im-
different approaches. Adaptive and other control laws are also in- practical, chattering and variable switching frequency, which
troduced to improve the control performance. The various controls introduce undesirable noise in the system.
are evaluated by applying the classical voltage reference step test Another control approach is deadbeat control, which is used
and the step load test. for digital systems [6]. Some authors proposed this approach as
Index Terms—Current limit, dynamic parameter adaptation, in- a way to extend sliding-mode control to discrete-time systems.
tegral error term, nonlinear control, switching converter, syner- In this paper, the focus is on a different approach, synergetic
getic control theory. control [7], which tries to overcome the previously described
problems of linear control by explicitly using a model of the
I. INTRODUCTION system for control synthesis. The synergetic control shares with
sliding mode control the properties of order reduction and de-

D ESIGN of controllers for power converter systems

presents interesting challenges. In the context of system
theory, since power converters are nonlinear time-varying
coupling design procedure, but it has several advantages. First
of all, it is well suited for digital control implementation, be-
cause it requires a fairly low bandwidth for the controller, but it
systems, they represent a big challenge for control design.
requires comparatively more complex calculations than sliding
Much effort has been spent to define small-signal linear
mode, which can be easily realized digitally. A second advan-
approximations of power cells so that classical control theory
tage is that it operates at constant switching frequency and it
could be applied to the design. See, for example, [1] and [2].
does not have the chattering problems of sliding-mode control,
Those approaches make it possible to use a simple linear
so that it causes less power filtering problems in power elec-
controller, e.g., proportional–integral controller, to stabilize the
tronics applications.
system. The most critical disadvantage is that the so-determined
The fact that synergetic control uses a model of the system for
control is suited only for operation near a specific operating
control synthesis can be considered both an advantage and a dis-
point. Further analysis is then necessary to determine the
advantage. It appears desirable that the control uses all available
response characteristics under large signal variations [3], [4].
information on the system for control purposes, but on the other
Other design approaches try to overcome the problem
hand it makes the control more sensitive to model and param-
by using the intrinsic nonlinear and time-varying nature of
eter errors. However, as we will demonstrate with experimental
switching converters for the control design purpose. A signif-
results, this problem can be solved.
icant example of this approach is sliding mode control, used
This paper focuses on the application of synergetic control
mostly for continuous-time systems [5]. This control theory
theory using a boost converter as the example application. In
has been extensively studied and applied to power electronics
Section II, we review the general synergetic control design pro-
systems, since the variable-structure nature of power electronics
cedure. In Section III, this procedure is applied to a boost con-
systems allows a natural application of this theory. The most
verter deriving a basic control law. In Section IV, simulation
and experimental results for the control under a voltage refer-
Paper IPCSD 03–078, presented at the 2002 Industry Applications Society ence step are presented. In Section V, various improved syn-
Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA, October 13–18, and approved for publication ergetic control laws are proposed and their performance ver-
in the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS by the Industrial Power ified by simulation and by experiment. The first case consid-
Converter Committee of the IEEE Industry Applications Society. Manuscript
submitted for review December 1, 2002 and released for publication July 16, ered is the introduction of a current limit and two different con-
2003. This work was supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) trol laws are proposed. The second case considered is a control
under Grant N00014-00-1-0131 and Grant N00014-02-1-0623. law with parameter adaptation. It reduces steady-state output
E. Santi, A. Monti, D. Li, and R. A. Dougal are with the Department of Elec-
trical Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208 USA voltage error and provides faster response without increasing
(e-mail: [email protected]). the peak inductor current. The third case introduces an integral
K. Proddutur was with the Department of Electrical Engineering, University voltage error term to eliminate the steady-state output voltage
of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208 USA. He is now at 1311 Whaley St.,
#807, Columbia, SC 29205 USA. error. Finally a control law that does not need an inductor cur-
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIA.2003.818967 rent reference is proposed. In Sections VI and VII, the synergetic
0093-9994/03$17.00 © 2003 IEEE
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1804 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 39, NO. 6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2003

control is tested under step load variation and the various con-
trol laws introduced previously are tested and their performance
compared.

II. SYNERGETIC CONTROL PROCEDURE

The synergetic control design procedure follows the Analyt-
ical Design of Aggregated Regulators (ADAR) method [8]. The
main steps of the procedure can be summarized as follows.
Suppose the system to be controlled is described by a set of
nonlinear differential equations of the form
Fig. 1. Boost converter scheme.
(1)

where is the state vector, is the control input vector, and is suitable selection of the control macro-variables can largely re-
time. solve any sensitivity to uncertainty in system parameters. The
Start by defining a macro-variable as a function of the state example of the control of a boost converter will be used to illus-
variables trate the issues involved in synergetic control implementation.

(2) III. BOOST CONVERTER CASE: AN EXAMPLE OF CONTROL

The control will force the system to operate on the mani- SYNTHESIS
fold . The designer can select the characteristics of this Let us consider the synthesis of a controller for a dc–dc boost
macro-variable according to the control specifications (e.g., lim- converter (see Fig. 1).
itation in the control output, and so on). In the trivial case the The classical averaged model of the converter is
macro-variable can be a simple linear combination of the state
variables.
The same process can be repeated, defining as many macro-
variables as control channels.
The desired dynamic evolution of the macro-variables is (6)
(3) where is the inductor current, the capacitor voltage, and
the duty cycle.
where is a design parameter specifying the convergence speed
Our objective is to obtain a control law as a function
to the manifold specified by the macro-variable. The chain rule
of state coordinates , , which provides the required values
of differentiation gives
of converter output voltage and, therefore, current
for various operating modes. The limitation on the
(4)
duty cycle must be satisfied. We use the procedure described
Combining (1), (3), and (4), we obtain above to solve the problem, i.e., to find . The first step
is the choice of macro-variable. In general the macro-variable
(5) could be any function (including nonlinear functions) of the
converter state. For the present time we will limit our investi-
Equation (5) is finally used to synthesize the control variable gation to a macro-variable that is a linear function of converter
. In the case of a switching converter, control variable is duty state and has the form
cycle, which is sent to a pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) modu-
(7)
lator to create the switch control variable.
Summarizing, each manifold introduces a new constraint on Substituting from (7) into (3) yields
the state space domain and reduces the order of the system.
The procedure summarized here can be easily implemented (8)
as a computer program for automatic synthesis of the control
Now, substituting the derivatives and from (6) and
law or can be performed by hand for simple systems, such as the
solving for duty cycle , the following control law is obtained:
boost converter used for this study, which has a small number
of state variables.
The synergetic control procedure requires a system model (1) (9)
and may be sensitive to system parameter uncertainty. One ob-
vious solution to the sensitivity problem is the adoption of so- The expression for is the control action for the converter
phisticated observers for parameter determination. This solution controller.
is reasonable only if the cost of the control is not a significant Control law (9) forces the state variable trajectory to satisfy
concern (e.g., high-power or high-voltage applications). For sit- (3). According to this equation, the trajectory converges to man-
uations where the control costs are of concern, we will show that ifold with a time constant and then stays on the mani-
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SANTI et al.: SYNERGETIC CONTROL FOR DC–DC BOOST CONVERTER 1805

TABLE I
COMPONENT VALUES FOR LABORATORY PROTOTYPE

Fig. 2. Geometric interpretation of control law (10) in the phase plane. The control law requires knowledge of boost converter pa-
rameters such as inductance , capacitance , and load resis-
fold at all times. So, from this point on the state trajectory tance , and also of state variable reference values. The ref-
satisfies erence capacitor voltage is known, since it is the desired
output voltage. For load resistance and for the reference in-
(10) ductor current , nominal load values are used. If the load
is different from the nominal value, there will be some error in
This equation establishes a linear dependence between the the control law, which may cause some steady state error. Some
two state variables and , thereby reducing by one the order of the improved control laws described later in the paper reduce
of the system. Moving on this manifold, the trajectory eventu- the effects or completely eliminate these steady-state errors. A
ally converges to the converter steady state: , load observer may also be used.
. A geometric interpretation of the control law in the phase
plane is shown in Fig. 2. The steady-state operating point is the
IV. SYSTEM SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION
origin, where the error goes to zero. Control (10) represents a
straight line through the origin with slope . The system An extended simulation analysis was conducted to verify the
operating point converges to the straight line (the control mani- control performance. The simulations were performed both in
fold) and then moves along it to the origin. the Matlab environment and using the VTB simulator [10], [11].
We note here that the actual control law used in the exper- After the theoretical analysis a laboratory prototype was de-
imental verification reported in the following is slightly more signed and built. The synergetic control is well suited for a dig-
complex than this because we desired to account for nonideal- ital implementation so a digital-signal-processor (DSP)-based
ities (voltage drops) in the power switches. Therefore, the con- platform was selected for the migration from the VTB environ-
verter model used to synthesize the control law is a modification ment to the real world. A dSpace DS1103 board was used for
of (6) that includes the switch voltage drops. Modeling the con- the experiments.
ducting MOSFET with its on resistance and the conducting The laboratory prototype has the component values listed in
diode as a constant voltage source equal to the diode voltage Table I.
drop , the averaged state equations describing the boost con- The dSpace board generates a continuous control signal
verter become between 0–1 for the duty cycle, which is transformed into a
PWM signal by an analog pulse width modulation circuit.
A very good agreement was found between simulation and
experiment. As an example, a voltage reference step response
(11) from 20 to 40 V is shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 4 shows the time evolution of the macro-variable . No-
Applying the same procedure described above to these equa-
tice the smaller time scale of 0.5 ms per division. When the ref-
tions, the duty cycle control law becomes
erence step is applied, the state trajectory momentarily leaves
the manifold, but in approximately 1 ms goes back to the
manifold. This is consistent with first-order (3) with the value
(12) of ms used: as expected, this transient decays in a time
with equal to . In the time scale of Fig. 3 (10 ms per division), this
corresponds to the fast rise of inductor current, which reaches
a value of 20 A. Once this transient is over, a second transient
follows that satisfies (10). This transient lasts approximately 20
Notice that this equation reduces to (9) for . ms. It is usually desirable to choose the time constant sig-
For simplicity, in the rest of the paper the reported control laws nificantly shorter than the response time of the control, so that
will be derived starting from the ideal state model (6) rather than during most of the transient the system is on the mani-
(11). These equations will be used for the simulations, but the fold.
control laws used in the hardware experiments will be based on The following observations can be made regarding the con-
state model (11). trol response waveforms of Figs. 3 and 4. These observations
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1806 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 39, NO. 6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2003

ably large values. In Section V, two different implementa-

tions of a current limit are described.
• Macro-variable has a steady-state value different from
zero. The reason for this (see [8]) is that the control law
in reality enforces condition (8) and only indirectly con-
dition (10). Therefore, any discrepancy between the real
converter parameters and the ones assumed in the control
law synthesis may lead to a nonzero value of in steady
state.
• A steady-state output voltage error is present. Careful ex-
amination of the experimental waveforms shows that a
steady-state error is present. Before the step, there is a
0.5-V error and after the step there is a 0.15-V error. In
general, this error is caused by small discrepancies be-
(a) tween the real converter parameters and the ones used for
the control synthesis. The nonzero value of macro-variable
is a symptom of the same problem. In order to reduce
the error, one approach is to adapt the value of parameter
in the control law (7) because a smaller value of reduces
the voltage error due to the term in (7). It
should be noted that there is an uncertainty in the value of
the current reference value . Another approach is to
add to the control law (7) an integral error term, so that in
steady state the error goes to zero.
• The synthesized control variable given by (9) requires
knowledge of converter parameters such as inductance ,
capacitance and also load resistance . In particular,
load resistance is needed to calculate the reference in-
ductor current used in the control law (7). Usually,
in a switching converter application, it is reasonable to as-
(b) sume that inductance and capacitance values are known,
but it is not reasonable to assume that the load characteris-
Fig. 3. Voltage reference step response—simulation and experiment.
(a) Output voltage. (b) Inductor current. tics are known or even fixed. So we introduce a modified
control that does not use load resistance , but rather uses
a high-pass-filtered version of inductor current in (7), so
that the control does not need the reference inductor cur-
rent .
• There is a discrepancy in the steady-state inductor current
between experiment and simulation, especially when the
output voltage is 40 V. This discrepancy is due in part to
the fact that the experimental voltage is higher than the
simulated voltage as noted above. Another reason is that
in the simulation the boost converter model (6) is ideal
and, therefore, lossless. In the experiment the losses in the
converter will make the inductor current larger than the
value predicted by the simulation.

V. SYNTHESIS OF MODIFIED/IMPROVED CONTROLS

The previous case illustrated a very simple case of control
Fig. 4. Voltage reference step response: macro-variable —simulation and synthesis that transformed the boost circuit into a first-order
experiment.
system always working on the manifold described by the macro-
variable.
provide motivation for the alternative control laws described in Areas of possible improvement were identified above. More
the rest of the paper. complex macro-variable definitions will next be introduced to
• Current overshoot is not limited. The control law does not implement improved control laws. The procedure to derive the
limit the inductor current. At startup and during large tran- new control laws is analogous to the one described above. In
sients the inductor current can temporarily reach undesir- the following part of this paper a number of different cases will
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SANTI et al.: SYNERGETIC CONTROL FOR DC–DC BOOST CONVERTER 1807

Fig. 5. Piecewise-linear function in the phase plane represents the current limit
control law (13) and (14).

be described in detail and their performance evaluated both in

simulation and experiment.
Fig. 6. Current limit using a piecewise-linear function—simulation and
experiment.
A. Current Limit Implementation
One classical problem relates to imposing a limit on one of the
state variables, e.g., limiting the maximum input current. Two
different approaches are examined.
In one approach the macro-variable is defined as a piecewise-
linear function

for
(13)
for (14)

where is the voltage value at which current is equal to Fig. 7. Geometric interpretation of control law (18).
the limit value . This value can be easily calculated from
(10) as A second possible approach to implement the current limit is
to define a single macro-variable that includes the current limit
(15) in its definition. A possible control law is

A geometric interpretation of this control law is shown in

Fig. 5, which shows the control law (13) and (14) in the phase (18)
plane. The steady-state operating point is the origin, where the
error goes to zero. Control (13) represents a straight line through where . This new definition will determine a new
the origin with slope . The current limit given by (14) rep- manifold where the current is naturally limited by the hy-
resents a straight horizontal line. perbolic tangent function to the range whenever the system
Repeating the usual synthesis procedure, the control law can state is on the manifold. A geometric interpretation of the con-
be obtained trol law is shown in Fig. 7.
The control law is given by (19), as shown at the bottom of
the next page.
The simulation and experiment are shown in Fig. 8. An ex-
cellent agreement has been found between simulation and ex-
for (16) periment.

for B. Control Law With Dynamic Adaptation of Control

(17) Parameter
The choice of the value of control parameter in the macro-
This approach is easy to implement with a digital controller. variable definition (7) involves a tradeoff: during transient a rel-
It has been simulated and tested and results are shown in Fig. 6. atively large value of is desirable, because it avoids large over-
Once again note the good agreement between simulation and currents and excessive stress on the switches. On the other hand,
experiment. a small value is desirable in steady state, because this reduces
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1808 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 39, NO. 6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2003

(a)

Fig. 8. Current limit with hyperbolic tangent function—simulation and

experiment.

(b)
Fig. 9. Geometric interpretation of parameter adaptation (20). Fig. 10. Dynamic parameter adaptation. (a) Output voltage. (b) Inductor
current.
the steady-state output voltage error as explained in [8]. A way
around the tradeoff is to dynamically adjust the value of as Using the adapted value of given by (20) in the control
a function of output voltage error, reducing when the output law (7), the simulation and experiment are shown in Fig. 10
voltage error is small. Based on this consideration, can be for and . These results can be compared
chosen as follows: with those in Fig. 3, where . First of all, the steady-state
error is reduced with respect to Fig. 3. An added benefit is that
(20)
the final part of the transient, when the output voltage error is
Fig. 9 shows a geometric interpretation of this control law. Far small and parameter is small according to (20), is faster with
from the origin the error is large and is small. This situation the modified control law for the same peak inductor current of
is represented by the line with smaller slope. As the operating approximately 20 A.
point moves closer to the origin the trajectory slope increases as It is also possible to combine the parameter adaptation with
increases. The adaptation is a continuous process and the the current limit feature introduced above by using the value of
trajectory slope changes continuously. Only three representative given by (20) in control law (18) that implements the current
lines are shown in the figure. limit. The current limit was set at 10 A. The result is shown in

(19)

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SANTI et al.: SYNERGETIC CONTROL FOR DC–DC BOOST CONVERTER 1809

(a) (a)

(b) (b)
Fig. 11. Dynamic parameter adaptation with current limit. (a) Output voltage. Fig. 12. Addition of integral error term. (a) Output voltage. (b) Inductor
(b) Inductor current. current.

Fig. 11. Notice that the inductor current is limited to less than is a second-order system, which becomes first order by virtue of
10 A. the synergetic control law (10). Notice that the introduction of
the integral term increases the system order by one, and returns
C. Control Law With Integral Error Term the controlled system back to second order.
In order to eliminate the steady-state error, an integral error The integral error term can also be added into the current-lim-
term is added to the manifold definition. This term is amplitude ited macro-variable (18). The macro-variable becomes
limited to avoid windup problem and interference with the syn-
ergetic control. The improved macro-variable is

(21) (23)

According to the synthesis procedure described in Section II, Applying the usual synthesis procedure, the control law is
the control law is derived as (22), shown at the bottom of the obtained as (24), shown at the bottom of the next page, where
page.
Implementing the above control law (22), the simulation and
experiments are plotted in Fig. 12. The steady-state error is vir-
tually eliminated, but note the second-order-type behavior with The simulation and experimental results for control law (24)
transient overshoot. This is to be expected. The boost converter are shown in Fig. 13. The addition of the integral term introduces

(22)

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1810 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 39, NO. 6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2003

(a)
(a)

(b) (b)

Fig. 13. Addition of integral error term with current limit. (a) Output voltage. Fig. 14. High-pass filter, corner frequency = 100 Hz. (a) Output voltage. (b)
(b) Inductor Current. Inductor current.

The high-pass-filtered inductor current can also be combined

a voltage overshoot. It is possible to avoid this by activating the with the current limit feature to limit the maximum value of the
integral error term only when the voltage error is below a certain inductor current.
threshold, so that transient behavior is not affected. The simulation and experiments are shown in Fig. 14 with a
high-pass-filter corner frequency of 100 Hz.
D. Control Law Using High Pass-Filtered Inductor Current
An alternative control law can be defined that uses a high- VI. SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS FOR THE CASE
pass-filtered measurement of the inductor current in place of OF STEP-LOAD VARIATION
the reference current (which, in most applications, is not Up to this point, the control performance was tested under a
actually known). The macro-variable becomes reference voltage step. In practice, it is of interest to evaluate the
control performance for a step-load variation [12].
The control laws introduced earlier were tested under the con-
(25) dition of a 50% step change of the load from 35 (nominal
load) to 70 . The experimental and simulation results for the
Comparing the modified macro-variable (25) to the original different control laws both show the startup transient first, fol-
macro-variable (7), the absence of the current reference value lowed by the response to step load variation. This was done to
is apparent. verify the large-signal stability of the system under the various

(24)

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SANTI et al.: SYNERGETIC CONTROL FOR DC–DC BOOST CONVERTER 1811

Fig. 15. Output voltage during step-load variation: simulation (dashed line)
and experiment (solid line). Fig. 16. Output voltage (simulation and experiment) when controller includes
integral term.

control laws. At the beginning the control is not active and the
output voltage is equal to the input supply voltage (12 V) due to
the presence of the boost converter diode.

A. Simple Synergetic Control Law

As a first case we adopt the manifold definition of (10). This
case is expected to be the least robust to load variation because
(10) uses the current reference, which is kept at the nominal
value at all times.
Both in simulation and experiment, we see that the output
voltage is disturbed by the step load variation, reaching a new
steady-state value that is different from the desired 40-V ref-
erence (see Fig. 15). Besides the steady-state error, the system
response to the step-load variation is fairly slow and it is desir-
able to improve it. Fig. 17. Output voltage (simulation and experiment) when controller includes
high-pass-filtered measured current term.
B. Addition of Integral Error Term
This result suggests the need for improvement of our defini- simple case of Fig. 15. Still, this solution does not improve the
tion for the target manifold. To obtain a zero-steady-state error, response speed.
control law (21) with an integral voltage error term can be used.
The results are shown in Fig. 16. As explained above, this con- D. Adaptation of Control Parameter
trol law gives an overall second-order behavior with overshoot Now, we introduce the control law with adaptive gain given
at startup. As a result of the introduction of the integral error by (20).
term, there is zero steady state output voltage error. However, The results obtained with this approach are illustrated in
the system response time to a step-load change is still quite slow. Fig. 18. We see that introduction of the adaptive term has a
The input current also shows an interesting behavior. At positive effect on control performance. The startup transient
startup, a 20% higher current peak is present in the case where speed is increased and the effect of step load change on the
the integral term is added. output voltage is so small that it is not discernible with the
voltage scale used. This indicates that the steady-state error
C. Control Law With High-Pass-Filtered Inductor Current is reduced with respect to the simple case and the speed of
response is significantly improved. Fig. 19 shows the inductor
As noted above, one of the reasons for the steady-state output
current waveform with the initial overshoot and the response
voltage error after the change of the load is the fact that the syn-
to the step-load change.
ergetic control law (10) incorporates the inductor current refer-
ence—but that reference cannot be a static quantity when the
VII. DISCUSSION
load is variable. A solution to this problem is to adopt control
law (25) that uses a high-pass-filtered measurement of the in- At this point, we can reach some conclusions regarding the
ductor current and does not need the inductor current reference. different control laws used. The simple control law exhibits a
The result is shown in Fig. 17. Notice that the steady-state slow response time and gives rise to a significant steady-state
output voltage error is significantly reduced with respect to the error. Fig. 20 is a zoomed version of Fig. 15 showing the detail
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1812 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 39, NO. 6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2003

Fig. 18. Output voltage (simulation and experiment) results with adaptive
control law. Fig. 21. Step-load response for the adaptive synergetic control (zoomed
version of Fig. 18).

control law it is difficult to obtain large-signal stability and fast

step-load response.
The addition of an integral term solves the steady-state error
problem, but it does not give an improvement in step response
speed. The step response speed could be improved by increasing
the integral term gain, but this would cause an unacceptable
output voltage overshoot at startup. The value used in the exper-
iment already gives a 6% output voltage overshoot, as shown in
Fig. 16.
Similar comments apply to the control law with highpass-
filtered inductor current. This control law reduces the steady-
state error, but it does not give an improvement in step response
speed.
The adaptive control allows the achievement of these goals
Fig. 19. Inductor current with adaptive control law. by reducing when the converter is close to steady state, guar-
anteeing fast step load response without compromising large-
signal stability. Fig. 21 is a zoomed version of Fig. 18 showing
the detail of the step load response. The steady-state error is 0.2
V, which is 0.5%. Notice also that the response time is approx-
imately 0.8 ms, which is 15 times faster than the response with
the simple control law.
The response times obtained with the various control laws can
be estimated using a small-signal model as explained in [12].
In conclusion, the adaptive control gives the better trade-off
between large-signal stability and load step response time.

VIII. CONCLUSION
The basic application of synergetic theory to the control of
a boost converter is introduced in [8]. In this paper variations
of the basic control law were explored. Among these are the
following.
Fig. 20. Step-load response for the simple synergetic control (zoomed version • Two different implementations of a control law that limits
of Fig. 15).
inductor current overshoot.
• A control law that includes dynamic adaptation of the con-
of the step load response. The response time is approximately 12 trol parameter depending on the output voltage error. This
ms. Analysis using (10) shows that the response time could be control law gives a better tradeoff between transient and
reduced by reducing . Unfortunately, simulation shows that the steady-state performance.
large-signal stability of the system is compromised by a choice • A control law that includes an integral error term to elim-
of smaller than 0.5. The conclusion is that with the simple inate steady-state error.
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SANTI et al.: SYNERGETIC CONTROL FOR DC–DC BOOST CONVERTER 1813

• A control law that uses the high-pass-filtered inductor cur- Antonello Monti (M’94–SM’02) received the M.S.
rent and does not require knowledge of the reference cur- degree in electrical engineering and the Ph.D. degree
from the Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy, in 1989
rent, which is load dependent for a desired output voltage. and 1994, respectively.
These control features can also be combined. The different From 1990 to 1994, he was with the research lab-
control options demonstrate the flexibility of the synergetic oratory of Ansaldo Industria of Milan, where he was
responsible for the design of the digital control of a
control approach. Simulation and experimental results for large power cycloconverter drive. From 1995 to 2000,
all control laws are given under reference step variation and he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of
step-load variation. Good agreement between simulation and Electrical Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano.
Since August 2000, he has been an Associate Pro-
experimental results is found. The results show that it is fessor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of South Car-
possible to synthesize a control law that is highly insensitive olina, Columbia. He is the author or coauthor of about 120 papers in the areas
to parameter variations. This result is particularly interesting of power electronics and electrical drives.
Dr. Monti is a Member of the Computers in Power Electronics Committee of
because the independence from model parameters seems to be the IEEE Power Electronics Society and currently serves as its Chair. In 1998, he
one of the most important concerns in this kind of control. served as Chairman of the IEEE Workshop on Computer in Power Electronics
held in Como, Italy.

REFERENCES
[1] S. Sanders, J. Noworolski, X. Z. Liu, and G. C. Verghese, “Generalized
averaging method for power conversion circuits,” IEEE Trans. Power
Electron., vol. 6, pp. 251–258, Apr. 1991.
[2] D. M. Mitchell, DC-DC Switching Regulator Analysis. New York: Mc-
Graw-Hill, 1988. Donghong Li (S’03) received the B.S. degree in
[3] R. W. Erickson, S. Cuk, and R. D. Middlebrook, “Large-scale mod- electronic science in 1986 from NanKai University,
eling and analysis of switching regulators,” Proc. IEEE PESC’82, pp. Tianjin, China, and the M.S. degree in computer
240–250, 1982. engineering in 2001 from the University of South
[4] P. Maranesi, M. Riva, A. Monti, and A. Rampoldi, “Automatic synthesis Carolina, Columbia, where he is currently working
of large signal models for power electronic circuits,” presented at the toward the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering.
IEEE PESC’99, Charleston, SC, July 1999. His research interests are synergetics and systems
[5] V. I. Utkin, “Variable structure system with sliding modes,” IEEE Trans. synthesis, power electronics, computer engineering,
Ind. Electron., vol. AC 22, pp. 212–222, Apr. 1977. and semiconductor devices and processing.
[6] L. Ben-Brahim and A. Kawamura, “Digital control of induction motor
current with deadbeat response using predictive state observer,” IEEE
Trans. Power Electron., vol. 7, pp. 551–559, July 1992.
[7] A. Kolesnikov et al., Modern Applied Control Theory: Synergetic Ap-
proach in Control Theory (in Russian). Moscow-Taganrog, Russia:
TSURE Press, 2000, vol. 2.
[8] A. Kolesnikov, G. Veselov, A. Kolesnikov, A. Monti, F. Ponci, E.
Santi, and R. Dougal, “Synergetic synthesis of Dc-Dc boost converter
Karthik Proddutur (S’02) received the B.S. degree
controllers: Theory and experimental analysis,” in Proc. IEEE APEC,
in electronics and instrumentation engineering from
Dallas, TX, Mar. 10–14, 2002, pp. 409–415.
Kakatiya University, Warangal, India, in 2000, and
[9] K. J. Astrom and B. Wittenmark, Computer-Controlled Sys-
the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from the
tems. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1997.
University of South Carolina, Columbia, in 2002.
[10] R. Dougal, T. Lovett, A. Monti, and E. Santi, “A multilanguage
He was a Research Assistant in the Power Elec-
environment for interactive simulation and development of controls
tronics Group, Department of Electrical Engineering,
for power electronics,” presented at the IEEE PESC, Vancouver, BC,
University of South Carolina, from 2000 to 2002. His
Canada, 2001.
research interests are in the design of control systems
[11] A. Monti, E. Santi, R. A. Dougal, and M. Riva, “Rapid prototyping of
for dc–dc power electronics applications.
digital controls for power electronics,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron.,
vol. 18, pp. 915–923, May 2003.
[12] A. Monti, R. Dougal, E. Santi, D. Li, and K. Proddutur, “Compensation
for step-load variations when applying synergetic control,” presented at
the IEEE APEC, Miami Beach, FL, Feb. 9–13, 2003.

Roger A. Dougal (SM’95) received the Ph.D. degree

Enrico Santi (S’89–M’94–SM’01) received the Dr. in electrical engineering from Texas Tech University,
Ing. degree in electrical engineering from the Uni- Lubbock.
versity of Padua, Padua, Italy, in 1988, and the M.S. He joined the faculty of the University of South
and Ph.D. degrees from California Institute of Tech- Carolina, Columbia, in 1983. He is Director of the
nology, Pasadena, in 1989 and 1994, respectively. Virtual Test Bed (VTB) project, a multi-disciplinary,
He was a Senior Design Engineer with TESLAco multi-university effort to develop a comprehensive
from 1993 to 1998, where he was responsible simulation and virtual prototyping environment
for the development of various switching power for advanced power systems, integrating power
supplies for commercial applications. Since 1998, electronics, electromechanics, electrochemistry, and
he has been an Assistant Professor in the Electrical controls into a common test bed. The VTB is unique
Engineering Department, University of South in allowing the simulation of multi-disciplinary systems by importing models
Carolina, Columbia. He has published several papers on power electronics and from discipline-specific source languages to a common workspace. In addition
modeling and simulation and is the holder of two patents. His research interests to modeling and simulation, his expertise includes power electronics, physical
include switched-mode power converters, advanced modeling and simulation electronics, and power sources.
of power systems, modeling and simulation of semiconductor power devices, Dr. Dougal received the Samuel Litman Distinguished Professor of Engi-
and control of power electronics systems. neering Award and has been honored as a Carolina Research Professor.

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