energies

Article
Analysis and Design Aspects of Min-Type Switching Control
Strategies for Synchronous Buck–Boost Converter
Julio Alves Mesquita da Silva , Grace Silva Deaecto and Tarcio Andre dos Santos Barros *

School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Campinas, São Paulo 13083-860, Brazil;

[email protected] (J.A.M.d.S.); [email protected] (G.S.D.)
* Correspondence: [email protected]

Abstract: This paper presents a comparative study among switching control strategies for Buck–
Boost converters, taking into account essential aspects in practical implementations, as the switching
frequency variation concerning different output voltages and the responses in the transient and
steady-states. More specifically, we have considered three switching strategies of min-type, where
two of them permit high switching frequencies, while the other considers a limited frequency control
strategy. Moreover, we have generalized the control techniques available in the literature to make
them able to operate under changes in the equilibrium points without the need for a redesign. A
conventional PI controller based on pulse-width modulation (PWM) is adopted for comparison
purposes. In contrast to PWM-based control, which operates in the maximum switching frequency,
the min-type strategies present variation in the switching frequency that depends on the operation
point and may lead to a power loss reduction when compared to conventional techniques. To assure



zero-error operation in the steady-state, a correction method is proposed. Experimental tests were


made to compare the transient and steady-state responses of these control methodologies, verify the
Citation: Mesquita da Silva, J.A.;
variation of the switching frequency according to the output voltages and the robustness concerning
Deaecto, G.S.; Barros, T.A.d.S.
load variations.
Analysis and Design Aspects of
Min-Type Switching Control
Strategies for Synchronous
Keywords: DC–DC power converters; switched systems; power electronics; robust control;
Buck–Boost Converter. Energies 2022, switching frequency
15, 2302. https://doi.org/10.3390/
en15072302

Academic Editors: Lasantha

1. Introduction
Meegahapola and Alfeu J.
Sguarezi Filho In recent years, much has been studied about switched systems. This subclass of
hybrid systems is characterized by presenting a set of subsystems and a rule (function) that
Received: 29 December 2021 orchestrates the switching among them. Much of the interest is motivated by the fact that
Accepted: 15 February 2022
they present some intrinsic properties that can be explored to assure stability and a suitable
Published: 22 March 2022
performance for systems in several areas of engineering, see [1,2]. A great number of works
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral in the literature is dedicated to the control design of state or output-dependent switching
with regard to jurisdictional claims in rules based on the Lyapunov theory. Reference [3] presents design conditions for switched
published maps and institutional affil- linear systems, while [4–6] are dedicated to switched affine systems.
iations. In power electronics, switched affine systems are used as models for DC–DC power
converters. A widely known control technique is based on the adoption of classical con-
trollers to regulate the duty-cycle of pulse-width modulation (PWM) signals, which are
designed for a Linear Time-Invariant (LTI) averaged model that describes the behavior of
Copyright: © 2022 by the authors.
the switched system for a specific operation point. However, treating this problem em-
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
ploying min-type switching strategies, as proposed in [4,7,8], in the light of the Lyapunov
This article is an open access article
theory, has been an advantageous control alternative from theoretical and practical view-
distributed under the terms and
points. These control methodologies are important since they explore the nonlinear and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
time-varying nature of the switched systems under consideration. Despite its importance, a
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
deep analysis of these advantages and several aspects arising in practical implementations
4.0/).
have not yet been fully explored.

Energies 2022, 15, 2302. https://doi.org/10.3390/en15072302 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/energies

Energies 2022, 15, 2302 2 of 15

One of these aspects concerns the switching frequency. Several available results, such
as [7,9], suppose the possibility of an infinite switching frequency to assure asymptotic
stability. This is not possible from a practical perspective due to physical limitations. To
circumvent this problem, some references have proposed min-type switching strategies
with limited frequency assuring practical stability of an equilibrium point (see [4,10,11])
or asymptotic stability of an adequate limit-cycle (see [12,13]). However, an analysis of
how this frequency varies concerning the operation point has never been made. When
the switching frequency is constant and generally high, as is the case of PWM-based
techniques, the power loss due to the switching is significant, leading to a lower efficiency
mainly when the converter is not operating at full load [14]. In this case, some techniques
and algorithms have been proposed to improve the converter’s efficiency by varying the
frequency according to the output power, such as [15–17]. It is interesting to notice that in
the case of min-type switching strategies the frequency variation is an intrinsic characteristic
that will be fully analyzed in the present paper.
Another important aspect of practical implementations is the robustness property
for changes in the operation point. Most of the control methodologies consider that
the converter always operates in a specific equilibrium point. In the case of min-type
switching strategies, such as [5,7], the robustness property does not exist or leads to a very
conservative result. In this paper, we have generalized two well-known min-type switching
strategies to make them robust concerning changes in the equilibrium points, removing
the need for redesign. Moreover, to reduce steady-state errors, which are common in
these control methodologies, some external control loops are proposed in the literature,
for instance [4,8]. The idea of this external loop is to force the system to operate in a novel
equilibrium point. In the present paper, we have adapted the proposal from [8] to improve
the performance of the overall system.
In summary, our main contributions are as follows:
• We have analyzed, by means of simulation and experimental tests, some aspects of
the min-type switching strategies proposed, as for instance, in [4,5,7,8]. Although
these aspects are very important for practical implementations, they have not yet
been fully explored in the literature. They concern the switching frequency variation
and the performance in the transient and steady-state responses. Particularly, the
former aspect is characteristic of the min-type switching controllers, which are not
based on averaged systems and explore the nonlinear nature of the switched system
under consideration. We have shown as the switching frequency of these controllers
varies with the output voltage, indicating a possible power loss reduction compared
to PWM-based techniques;
• We have generalized the methodologies proposed in [5,7] to make them robust with
respect to changes in the equilibrium points, which is a situation very common
in practical implementations. These references have been adopted as a basis for
generalization of several works in the literature, see, for instance, [4,18,19]. As the
change in the equilibrium point is taken into account during the design step, the
performance in the transient and in the steady-state responses tends to be better when
this situation occurs;
• We have adapted the methodology proposed in [8] to enhance the external control
loop used for correcting the steady-state error.
The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents the problem formulation and
the control goal. The control techniques, as well as the theoretical enhancements related
to robustness with respect to changes in the equilibrium points, are presented in Section 3.
Section 4 is dedicated to provide the control parameters and the experimental build. Im-
portant features of the frequency variation and a proposal of an external loop to correct
the steady-state error are also presented in this section. Section 5 provides and discusses
experimental results and, finally, Section 6 summarizes the main aspects of the results and
provides a perspective for future work.
Energies 2022, 15, 2302 3 of 15

A standard notation is used throughout. The set of real numbers is denoted by R.

The set K = {1, . . . , N } contains the first N positive natural numbers. The transpose of
a vector or a matrix X is identified by X 0 . The symbol Tr(•) denotes the trace function.
The matrix Xλ represents the convex combination Xλ = ∑i∈K λi Xi of the set { X1 , . . . , X N },
where λ belongs to the unitary simplex Λ = {λ ∈ R N | ∑iN=1 λi = 1 and λi ≥ 0}. The
symbol σ indicates the switching function σ (t) : R → K and Xσ denotes a matrix, such that
Xσ ∈ { X1 , · · · , X N }. The symbol arg mini∈K f i ( x ) means the argument i of the function
mini∈K f i ( x ) and inf stands for the infimum operator. For a real and symmetric matrix,
X > 0 (X < 0) identifies it as positive (negative)R definite. The square norm of a trajectory
∞
ξ (t) defined for all t ≥ 0, is denoted by kξ k22 = 0 ξ (t)0 ξ (t)dt.

2. Problem Formulation
Consider a synchronous Buck–Boost converter whose topology is presented in Figure 1.
 0
Defining the state variable x = i L vo , the following continuous-time switched affine
system expresses the dynamic model of this converter

ẋ (t) = Aσ x (t) + bσ , x (0) = x0 (1)

where x0 is an arbitrary initial condition and σ (t) : R+ → K is the switching function that,
at each instant of time, chooses one of the N available subsystems.

Figure 1. Synchronous Buck–Boost circuit diagram.

In this circuit, each pair of switches (S1, S2) and (S3, S4) operates complementarily,
that is, when S1 is closed, S2 is open, and vice versa. The same behavior occurs for the
switches S3 and S4. The state of the switches (open or closed) operating synchronously
allows us to define N = 2 subsystems, being the first obtained when the switches S1 and S3
are active, while the second is obtained when the switches S2 and S4 are active, resulting
in the following state-space models
   
− R/L 0 V /L
A1 = , b1 = in
0 −1/( Ro Co ) 0
    (2)
− R/L −1/L 0
A2 = , b2 =
1/Co −1/( Ro Co ) 0

The control goal is to design a state-dependent switching rule σ ( x ) : R2 → K in order

 0
to govern the state trajectories towards an equilibrium point xe = Ie Ve belonging to
the set
Xe = { xe ∈ R2 : xe = − A− 1
λ bλ , λ ∈ Λ } (3)
of attainable ones.
Using the equation Aλ xe + bλ = 0 obtained from (3), we can determine the equilibrium
current as a function of the desired output voltage Ve , as follows
q
2 − 4R Ve (Ve +Vin )
Vin − Vin Ro
Ie = (4)
2R
Energies 2022, 15, 2302 4 of 15

Actually, for each voltage Ve , there are two possible values for the equilibrium current
Ie . In (4) the higher value was discarded, as it will have a lower energy efficiency. A function
such as this is very versatile, as it allows the operation of the converter through the
knowledge of only one of the two information from the equilibrium point, and will be
useful in our context to obtain a strategy for the steady-state correction.

3. Control Design
In this section, the goal is to present some already known control techniques to be
analyzed and compared afterward concerning relevant aspects in practical implementations.
Particularly, we have considered three min-type switching strategies. Two of them were
obtained from [7] and do not impose any bound on the switching frequency. These
techniques are well-known and have been used as a basis for generalizations in recent
references, see [4,18–20]. However, in practical implementations it is not possible to
suppose an infinite switching frequency due to physical limitations of digital circuits. To
avoid this problem, a sampled-data switching strategy has been proposed in [5], which
naturally imposes an upper bound on the switching frequency. Unfortunately, all these
methodologies and others from the literature do not take into account the possibility
of changes in the equilibrium points. In the present work, we have generalized these
control techniques to make them robust with respect to these changes without the need
for a redesign. This simple generalization is, in our opinion, very important for practical
implementations. For the sake of comparison, the classic control method has also been
considered. It consists in the design of a PI controller, which is responsible for the adjust of
the duty-cycle in a PWM signal.

3.1. Classic Controller

The classic control strategy relies on two key components, an output feedback con-
troller and a PWM signal generator. By using the output voltage error, the controller is
responsible for adjusting the duty-cycle of a PWM signal generator, which then sends the
control pulses to operate the switches (S1, S2), (S3, S4).
The controller is usually a PI, whose transfer function can be given in the continuous-
time domain by

δ̂(s) 1
C (s) = = k p + ki (5)
ê(s) s

where δ and e are the duty-cycle and the voltage error e = Ve − vo , respectively. To design
the controller parameters, a Linear Time Invariant model of the type G (s) = V̂o (s)/δ̂(s) is
required, which depends on the desired output voltage Ve and can be given by
2
Ro Vin
V2 Ls + R − V 2
G (s)=− e e
Ro Vin Co Ls2 + s(Co R + L )+ R + ( Ve − 1)2
Ro Ro Ve +V in

The method used to obtain this model can be found in [14].

Among other possibilities, we have chosen a frequency-domain design method to de-
termine the controller parameters k p and k i , see [14] for details. Afterward, the PI controller
has been discretized with the same frequency as the PWM signal and implemented. In the
sequel, the focus is shifted to the min-type controllers.

3.2. Non-Sampled Switching Function

In this subsection, we present two min-type switching functions borrowed from [7]
and based on the simple quadratic Lyapunov function

v( x ) = ( x − xe )0 P( x − xe ) (6)
Energies 2022, 15, 2302 5 of 15

with P > 0. Defining a controlled output for the system (1) as being

z = Cσ ( x − xe ) (7)

both state-dependent switching functions have been designed in order to assure global
asymptotic stability of the equilibrium point xe ∈ Xe and a suitable upper bound for the L2
norm kzk22 . The simpler switching strategy of [7] is given by

σ ( x ) = arg min( x − xe )0 P( Ai xe + bi ) (8)

i ∈K

where P > 0 is the solution of the following convex optimization problem

P = arg inf Tr( P) (9)

P >0

subject to
Ai0 P + PAi + Ci0 Ci < 0, i ∈ K (10)
An interesting point about this result is that the switching rule (8) can be adopted
for any equilibrium xe ∈ Xe , without the need for a redesign. Due to this important
property, the conditions (10) have been used for generalization in several works of the
literature [4,6,21–23]. However, these conditions suffer of great conservatism because
require that matrices Ai , ∀i ∈ K be quadratically stable.
Reference [7] has also provided a more elaborated switching rule based on less conser-
vative conditions, but at the cost of losing the robustness property with respect to changes
in the equilibrium points. To circumvent this inconvenient, we have made a simple gen-
eralization in the conditions of [7]. Defining the set of M equilibrium points of interest
as being
Sec = { xe1 , · · · , xeM } (11)
j
where Sec ⊂ Xe , with Xe defined in (3), and the associated vector as λ( xe ) = λ j ∈ Λ, ∀ j ∈
{1, · · · , M}, the next theorem presents this result.

Theorem 1. Consider the switched affine system (1) with the controlled output (7) and choose
j j
an equilibrium point xe = xe ∈ Sec with its associated vector λ = λ( xe ) = λ j ∈ Λ for some
j ∈ {1, · · · , M}. If there exists a matrix P > 0 satisfying the LMIs
j
A0λ j P + PAλ j + Qλ < 0 (12)

for all j ∈ {1, · · · , M} where

N N
∑ λi Ai , ∑ λi Ci0 Ci ,
j j
Aλ j = Qλ j = (13)
i =1 i =1

then the state-dependent switching function

 
σ( x ) = arg min( x − xe )0 2P( Ai x + bi ) + Ci0 Ci ( x − xe ) (14)
i ∈K

j
assures the global asymptotic stability of any equilibrium point xe = xe ∈ Sec , j ∈ {1, · · · , M } and
the guaranteed cost
Z ∞
j j
z0 zdt < max ( x0 − x e ) 0 P ( x0 − x e ) (15)
0 j∈{1,··· ,M}

is satisfied.
Energies 2022, 15, 2302 6 of 15

Proof. The proof is direct and follows the same reasoning of the one in Theorem 1 of [7]
and, therefore, is omitted.

Notice that adopting this theorem, matrix P > 0 appearing in (14) can be calculated
only once and is sufficient to assure stability of any equilibrium point xe ∈ Sec . Assuming
that the initial condition x0 is uniformly distributed over the unit sphere, this Lyapunov
matrix can be obtained as the solution of the following convex optimization problem

P = arg inf Tr( P) (16)

P >0

subject to
A0λ j P + PAλ j + Qλ j < 0, j ∈ {1, · · · , M} (17)
which is much less stringent than (10). At this moment, the interesting question is to know
if the conditions (10) and (12) assure stability even for online changes of the equilibrium
point. The answer is affirmative if the change between two points is sufficiently slow. In
this case, we can interpret that the instant where the new equilibrium point is activated is
considered the initial condition for this new scenario.

3.3. Sampled Switching Function

Now, our goal is to provide design conditions for the sampled-data switching function
defined as
σ(t) = σ (tk ) = σ ( Tk ) = σ [k], ∀t ∈ [tk , tk+1 ) (18)
where tk and tk+1 are successive switching instants such that tk+1 − tk = T and T > 0
is the sampling period. Notice that the switching frequency is limited to have an upper
bound equal to 1/T. With the switching function (18), it is possible to define the following
discrete-time switched affine system

x [k + 1] = Fσ x [k] + gσ , x [0] = x0 (19)

whose matrices are determined by solving

Z T
Fi = e Ai T , gi = e Ai τ dτ bi (20)
0

where Ai and bi are obtained from the continuous-time model. As proven in [3], the discrete-
time system (19) is equivalent to the continuous-time one (1), whenever σ (t) satisfies the
constraint (18). In this case, the set of attainable equilibrium points is given by

Ye = {ye ∈ R2 : ye = ( I − Fλ )−1 gλ , λ ∈ Λ} (21)

It is simple to verify that when T → 0 the set Ye becomes Xe as expected.

Hence, a manner of determining the sampled switching function (18) is to find design
conditions for the discrete-time system (19). This problem has been treated in reference [5],
which has provided a min-type state-dependent switching function for the system (19) able
to assure global practical stability of a chosen equilibrium point ye ∈ Ye . Differently from
the asymptotic stability, in the practical stability, the state trajectories are attracted not to a
point, but to an invariant set of attraction, as small as possible, containing the equilibrium
point of interest.
The conditions proposed in [5] are based on a general quadratic Lyapunov function
0 
h 0 P −1 h h0
  
1 1
v( x ) = (22)
x − ye h P x − ye

with h ∈ Rn , 0 < P ∈ Rn×n to be determined. In this reference, the design conditions

are obtained by minimizing the volume of an ellipsoidal set of attraction. In this paper,
Energies 2022, 15, 2302 7 of 15

we have used another objective function, more amenable for practical implementations,
which is based on the minimization of an upper bound of the Euclidean norm applied
to a controlled output (7), when it is in steady-state. The output matrices can be index
independent Ci = C, ∀i ∈ K indicating that a specific signal is chosen to be regulated, as
for instance, some combination between the inductor current and the output voltage of the
Buck–Boost converter.
As the result proposed in [7], unfortunately, the one of [5] does not present the
robustness property with respect to changes in the equilibrium point. Thus, the same
reasoning adopted in the last subsection is used here to take into account this important
property. Defining the set of M equilibrium points of interest as being

Sed = {y1e , · · · , yeM } (23)

j
where Sed ⊂ Ye , with Ye defined in (21), and the associated vector as λ(ye ) = λ j ∈ Λ, ∀ j ∈
{1, · · · , M}, the next theorem presents this result.

Theorem 2. Consider the switched affine system (19) with the controlled output (7) with
j
Ci = C, ∀i ∈ K and choose an equilibrium point ye = ye ∈ Sed with its associated vector
j j j
λ = λ(ye ) ∈ Λ for some j ∈ {1, · · · , M}. Defining, `i = ( Fi − I )ye + gi , ∀i ∈ K, if there exist
P > 0 and a scalar γ > 0 solution to the following convex optimization problem

max γ (24)
P>0,γ>0

subject to
j j0
∑ λi Fi0 PFi − P < −γC0 C, ∑ λi `i P`i < 1
j j
(25)
i ∈K i ∈K

for all j ∈ {1, · · · , M}, then the state-dependent switching function

σ ( x ) = arg min v( Fi x + gi ) (26)

i ∈K

with v( x ) completely defined by

 
h = ( I − Fλ0 )−1 ∑ λi Fi0 P`i (27)
i ∈K

j
with `i = ( Fi − I )ye + gi , assures the practical stability of any equilibrium point ye = ye ∈ Sed ,
j ∈ {1, · · · , M} and that the controlled output z converges to the ball

B = { z ∈ Rn z : z 0 z ≤ γ −1 } (28)

Proof. The proof follows the same pattern of the one in [5], with γC 0 C → W and adapted to
j
hold robustly for different equilibrium points ye ∈ Sed and, therefore, it will be omitted.

As mentioned in [5], to take into account the sampled-data switching function, the
following additional constraints
j j j j
γ( xe − ye )0 C 0 C ( xe − ye ) < 1, j ∈ {1, · · · , M } (29)
j
must be included in Theorem 2 to assure that the corresponding xe of the continuous-time
system is inside the set of attraction. Notice that, as before, the online changes of the
equilibrium points can be considered whenever they are sufficiently slow.
Energies 2022, 15, 2302 8 of 15

4. Experimental Build, Control Parameters, and Frequency Variation Analysis

To evaluate the performance of the min-type switching strategies, the synchronous
Buck–Boost converter of Figure 1 was built with the parameters from Table 1. A photo of
the experimental setup is presented in Figure 2.

Table 1. Parameters from the converter control simulation.

Parameter Symbol Value

Input Voltage (V) Vin 65
Coil Inductance (mH) L 2
Coil Resistance (Ω) R 0.2
Output Capacitance (µF) Co 2250
Load Resistance (Ω) Ro 96.8

The switches {S1, · · · , S4} are IGBTs with anti-parallel diodes (SKM150GB12T4). The
gate drivers are of the model SKHI 21A. The measured variables by four Hall effect sensors
are the input and output voltages (LEM LV 20-P) and the inductor and output currents
(LEM LA 55-P).

Figure 2. Experimental converter build.

To allow a greater range of tests, the Texas Instruments DSP TMS320F28379D was used.
The DSP works with 200 MHz, 2 cores and a 32 bits floating processing unit. These aspects
significantly improve the performance, that imply in a minor delay between measurement
and control actions. One of the cores is dedicated for the control routines. Through software
interruption, the control routine was executed at the frequency of 1/T = 40 kHz, which is
the maximum frequency of the gates. This is equivalent to a PWM signal of 20 kHz, used
in the PI implementation.
For the control routine, the four control techniques presented in Section 3 have been
designed. The classic PI controller (30) was determined in the continuous-time domain,
considering the transfer function G (s) evaluated for a reference voltage of Ve = 100 V, and
by means of a methodology based on frequency response, respecting a phase margin of 60◦ .
The obtained PI parameters were

k p = 0.00283 k i = 0.312 T = 50 µs (30)

Afterward, it has been discretized using the Tustin method to be executed at 20 kHz.
For the min-type switching strategies, the control design is based on the determi-
nation of the Lyapunov matrix P > 0 using the conditions previously presented. More
specifically, for  
0 R 0
Ci Ci = , ∀i ∈ K (31)
0 30/Ro
Energies 2022, 15, 2302 9 of 15

and solving the convex optimization problem (9) subject to (10), we have obtained a
guaranteed cost of kzk22 ≤ 0.0577 corresponding to

 
−2 2.3103 0.1166
P = 10
0.1166 3.4610

used to implement the non-sampled switching function (8), identified as Quadratic Non-
Sampled (QNS) Controller. For the other control strategies, we have considered a set of
equilibrium points Sec composed of the ones with output voltages varying from 5 V to 120 V
with steps of 5 V. The same has been adopted for obtaining the set Sed . Hence, solving the
convex optimization problem (16) subject to (17) we have obtained kzk22 ≤ 0.0045 and
 
−3 1.4922 0.8171
P = 10
0.8171 3.0502

important for the switching function (14) identified as Robust Non-Sampled (RNS) Con-
troller. For the sampled switching function, we have discretized the system with a sampling
period of T = 25 µs and solved the conditions of Theorem 2 for
 
0 9/25 0
CC= (32)
0 1

and Sed containing the desired equilibrium points. We have obtained γ = 0.0037 and
 
0.8372 0.4200
P=
0.4200 1.3553

which, together with h provided in (27), allows us to implement the switching function (26)
denoted as Robust Sampled (RS) Controller. Notice that, for the adopted sampling period
ye ≈ xe , since T = 25 µs is sufficiently small. For this reason, we have adopted only xe for
all switching functions, which has eased considerably its practical implementation. In the
next section, we present important properties of these controllers concerning the switching
frequency variation.

4.1. Frequency Variation

In this subsection, our goal is to analyze the switching frequency variation of a Buck–
Boost converter operating under min-type switching control strategies. Although they have
been widely adopted in the literature, to the best of authors’ knowledge, a study about
switching frequency variation as a means of reducing the power consumption has never
been made. For this purpose, for each control technique, we have obtained this frequency
profile as a function of the output voltage, taking into account its value when the system
attains the steady-state.
Through simulation, we have obtained these profiles for control frequencies of 1 MHz,
200 kHz, and 40 kHz, ignoring the existence of dead-time. The plots for each control
technique are presented in Figure 3.
It is important to mention that the PI controller always operates with a switching
frequency equal to the control one. Differently, in the min-type strategies, this frequency
depends considerably on the output voltage and switches less frequently for low and high
voltage values. This may lead to a power loss reduction without any additional algorithm.
Energies 2022, 15, 2302 10 of 15

1000 200 40

Switching frequency (kHz)

35

Switching frequency (kHz)

Switching frequency (kHz)

800
150 30

600 25
100
20
400
QNS Controller QNS Controller 15 QNS Controller
50
200 RNS Controller RNS Controller RNS Controller
RS Controller RS Controller 10 RS Controller

0 0 5
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Output voltage (V) Output voltage (V) Output voltage (V)

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 3. Switching frequency variation with Quadratic Non-Sampled (QNS) Controller, Robust
Non-Sampled (RNS) Controller, and Robust Sampled (RS) Controller (a) Switching rule at 1 MHz
(b) Switching rule at 200 kHz, (c) Switching rule at 40 kHz.

The triangular pattern observed in these plots indicates that the frequency not neces-
sarily increases with the output voltage, but its peak may have some relationship with the
supply voltage. Moreover, as observed in the plot for 40 kHz, with the control frequency
reduction, all the rules converge to the same curve and, therefore, become similar in terms
of switching losses.
Another notable aspect of the switching strategies is that the steady-state error in-
creases with the reduction in the control frequency. For each min-type strategy, we have
determined the mean of the errors obtained for all range of output voltages, obtaining
the values presented in Table 2. Notice that, in most cases, the error is relatively small,
being significant only for the QNS controller, which has attained a maximum value of
approximately 4 V in the tested range. In the next section, we present a correction method,
which makes it possible to operate the converter with zero-error.

Table 2. Average steady-state error.

Voltage Error (%)

Controller 1 MHz 200 kHz 40 kHz
QNS Controller 0.5 2.6 12.2
RNS Controller 0.1 0.3 1.5
RS Controller 0.0 0.1 0.6

4.2. Steady-State Correction

As it has been observed during the simulation and other studies, such as [4], the use
of min-type control strategies for limited switching frequency, generally, results in a steady-
state error, which may even reach considerable values when the operating conditions are
not compatible with the control design ones. The magnitude of this error depends on the
switching frequency and the model precision, but it is usually noticeable whenever the
converter operates with a load different from the one considered during the control design.
As load variation is common and expected for most applications, it is interesting to be able
to achieve zero-error operation, regardless of any model imperfection.
To treat this problem, some techniques have been already proposed. In [4], a controller
is used to adjust the equilibrium point voltage and the new corresponding coil current
is calculated accordingly. In [7], a low-pass filter is used to estimate the equilibrium
current. In [8], two methods of acquiring the equilibrium point with partial information
are approached. The first consists in the use of a low-pass filter, similar to the one applied
in [7]. The other method relies on the use of an integrator to correct the error from a current
estimation obtained from the averaged model.
The method proposed here adapts the technique from [8]. The problem of using
an integrator to correct the coil current value is that, if it is designed to present a quick
response, an abrupt reference or load change may result in a noticeable voltage error and
oscillation, which might be a problem for some applications. To mitigate this risk, the
Energies 2022, 15, 2302 11 of 15

integrator has been replaced by a PI controller, making it possible for the system to have a
quick response while avoiding oscillations. Figure 4 presents the adopted configuration.

Figure 4. Equilibrium point coil current correction.

With this method, the zero-error operation can be achieved despite differences between
the mathematical model and the real system. As the use of such a methodology can have
a significant impact on the transient response, it has been engaged only after the system
reaches its steady-state. In the present case, we have used only one PI controller for all the
studied control techniques, its parameters are

k p = 1.5, k i = 100 (33)

For the sampled switching function (26), the estimated current Ie has not been used
to update h, because this parameter needs a precise correspondence of the pair (ye , λ(ye ))
and the correction of λ has not been considered in the present correction methodology.

5. Experimental Results
For the results presented in Section 4.1, gate drivers’ delays were not taken into
account. However, with the specification of the components provided in Table 1, we can
consider a dead-time and other nonlinearities, making the simulation more similar to the
real operation of the system. The considered dead-time is of 5 µs and 3 µs to open and
close the gates, respectively.
Figure 5 presents switching frequency profiles for the three studied min-type switching
strategies, for the ideal and non-ideal cases (with and without dead-times), respectively,
obtained by simulation and identified in the figure as Ideal Switches and Real Gates, and
the correspondent experimental measures. Each profile has been obtained measuring
the switching frequency when the system reaches the steady-state and, consequently, the
desired output voltage. It has been considered a control frequency of 40 kHz that is equal
to the maximum switching frequency of the gates and adopted the correction method
proposed in Section 4.2 to regulate the steady-state response. In this figure, it is notable
a deformation when the simulation results generated by ideal switches and by real gates
are compared. This deformation is, however, negligible for output voltages smaller than
25 (V), since they require lower switching frequencies, which smooth the impact of the gate
driver delay.

40 40 40
Switching frequency (kHz)

Switching frequency (kHz)

Switching frequency (kHz)

35 35 35

30 30 30

25 25 25

20 20 20
Ideal Switches Ideal Switches Ideal Switches
15 15 15
Real Gates Real Gates Real Gates
10 Equivalent PWM 10 Equivalent PWM 10 Equivalent PWM
Experimental Result Experimental Result Experimental Result
5 5 5
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Output voltage (V) Output voltage (V) Output voltage (V)

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 5. Switching frequency variation with min-type controllers (a) Quadratic Non-Sampled (QNS)
Controller, (b) Robust Non-Sampled (RNS) Controller, (c) Robust Sampled (RS).
Energies 2022, 15, 2302 12 of 15

Shifting the focus to the experimental results, it is interesting to observe that the
switching frequency was considerably similar to the simulation results. Some differences
are noticeable, but not relevant and most likely caused by measurement noises.
The important information about Figure 5 is that all of the min-switching strategies
present a similar frequency profile among them with values much smaller than 40 kHz,
which is the maximum frequency of the gate, generally, used by PWM-based control tech-
niques, as it is the case of the classic PI controller. A smaller switching frequency indicates
a possible power loss reduction. Notice, however, that if the switches are considered
ideal, the value of 40 kHz can be reached for a specific output voltage, but even in this
situation, the min-type switching strategies may be more efficient concerning power loss.
This occurs because the maximum frequency generally occurs in the steady-state when
the system is evolving into a sliding mode. Hence, during the transient response, the
frequency is naturally smaller than 40 kHz, while with the PWM it remains constant during
all the operation.
As the frequency analysis indicated the potential of the min-type switching controllers
to reduce power loss, it is also interesting to analyze the transient response of the system.
With this purpose, the reference voltage is set to follow a step of 100 V. Figure 6 presents the
resulting output voltages for all control strategies, considering simulated and real results.
At this first moment, we have not used the correction method for better comparison. Notice
that, the responses using the classic PI controller are also provided in the output voltage
plots. At first sight, some aspects are interesting to note. The QNS controller experienced
the worst performance in both, the transient and the steady-state responses. Indeed, it
reached the stability in 218 ms, while the PI controller in 66 ms, and presented a steady-state
error of 5%, which is considerably large. We have observed by simulation that this error
reduces by increasing the control frequency, becoming 0.2% for 1 MHz.
It is important to remark that, the QNS controller is robust for all possible equilibrium
points, while the PI controller was designed to operate specifically for 100 V. On the
other hand, the RNS and RS controllers experienced the best performance in the transient
response among all, reaching the desired voltage in approximately 50 ms, which is 24%
faster than the PI controller. Moreover, the steady-state error was less than 1%. Once
again, it is important to highlight that, the RNS and RS controllers are robust for a set of
equilibrium points Sec . This indicates that for another reference voltage, the performance of
the PI controller can be even worse, while for the RNS and RS controllers, it is maintained
approximately similar to the one observed in the Figure 6. This can be easily verified
through simulations. By making multiple reference steps to all of the voltages from Sec ,
Figure 7 demonstrates that the RS and RNS controllers outdo the PI controller in all range
of operation. The difference becomes significant in lower voltages, which are farther from
the one considered during the design.

100 100 100

Output voltage (V)
Output voltage (V)

Output voltage (V)

80 80 80

60 60 60
QNS Simulation RNS Simulation RS Simulation
40 QNS Experiment 40 RNS Experiment 40 RS Experiment
PI Simulation PI SImulation PI Simulation
20 20 20

0 0 0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08
Time (s) Time (s) Time (s)

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 6. Step response of the min-type controllers (a) Quadratic Non-Sampled (QNS) Controller,
(b) Robust Non-Sampled (RNS) Controller, (c) Robust Sampled (RS).
Energies 2022, 15, 2302 13 of 15

0.35
QNS Controller
0.3 RNS Controller
RS Controller
0.25 PWM Controller

Settling Time (s)

0.2

0.15

0.1

0.05

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Voltage reference (V)

Figure 7. Settling time variation in the range of operation.

Notice that the steady-state error observed in the QNS controller can be corrected by
the method proposed in Section 4.2. In this case, after the converter reaches the desired
equilibrium, the correction method can be engaged, assuring the zero-error operation.
To verify the performance of the min-type switching strategies to load variations, we
have added another resistance in parallel with Ro , with the same value, whose activation
is made by a switch after the system reaches the steady-state. Figure 8 provides the
correspondent voltage responses.

104 104 104

QNS Experiment RNS Experiment RS Experiment
PI Simulation PI Simulation PI Simulation
QNS Simulation RNS Simulation RS Simulation
Output voltage (V)

Output voltage (V)

Output voltage (V)

102 102 102

100 100 100

98 98 98

96 96 96
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0 0.05 0.1 0.15
Time (s) Time (s) Time (s)

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 8. Comparison between min-type and classic controller on a load change. Load changes
from 96.8 Ω to 48.4 Ω (a) Quadratic Non-Sampled (QNS) Controller, (b) Robust Non-Sampled (RNS)
Controller, (c) Robust Sampled (RS).

It can be noticed that for all min-type switching strategies, the correction method was
able to recover the desired voltage after the load change without a great variation on the
output voltage. The performance of the control methodologies was similar but with more
oscillations in the QNS controller.

6. Conclusions
In this paper, we have demonstrated the application of min-type control strategies to a
Buck–Boost converter and compared it with a classic PI controller. We have generalized
the available design conditions to make them robust to changes in the equilibrium points
without the need for a redesign. The controller performances were evaluated regarding
switching frequency variation, response to a reference step, and robustness for load vari-
ation. A correction method has also been proposed to approach the known problem of
steady-state error and its efficiency was demonstrated through load step tests. Compared to
other control techniques, the min-type switching strategies have the following advantages:
• They are not designed for averaged systems, as the PWM-based techniques, and
explore the nonlinear nature of the switched affine system, being able to provide a
better performance in the transient response, as illustrated in Figures 6 and 7;
• With the generalization proposed in this paper, the RNS and RS switching functions
became robust with respect to a set of equilibrium points, without the need for a
Energies 2022, 15, 2302 14 of 15

redesign. This has contributed to guarantee a suitable performance and small steady-
state errors when these points are changed during the operation. This robustness
property has not been taken into account in [5,7];
• Differently from the PWM-based techniques, which generally operate in a constant
and high switching frequency, in the min-type switching strategies this frequency is
variable, generally much smaller than the PWM one, and dependent on the operation
point, as illustrated in Figures 3 and 5. This certainly leads to a power loss reduction
in the electronic switches.
In addition to these advantages, one disadvantage of the these min-type strategies
is that they do not have intrinsically the integral action, which is responsible to give
robustness with respect to parameter variations. However, to circumvent this problem
the correction method provided in Figure 4 has been proposed and provided suitable
performances under load variations as illustrated in Figure 8. In future studies, the
switching strategy may be further developed to include the integral action, mitigating the
need for a correction method.

Author Contributions: Conceptualization, J.A.M.d.S. and G.S.D.; Formal analysis, G.S.D.; Investiga-
tion, J.A.M.d.S. and T.A.d.S.B.; Methodology, T.A.d.S.B.; Supervision, T.A.d.S.B.; Writing—original
draft, J.A.M.d.S.; Writing—review and editing, G.S.D. All the authors have contributed equally to
this work. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: This research was supported by São Paulo Research Foundation (Fapesp) under grants,
9/00383-3 and 16/08645-9, and by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development
(CNPq), under grant 303499/2018-4.
Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable.
Data Availability Statement: Not applicable.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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