Performance evaluation of robust parametric control strategies applied on suppression of oscillations effects due to constant power loads in multi-converter buck-buck systems

Abstract

Multi-converter electronic systems are becoming widely used in many industrial applications; therefore, the stability of the cascaded system is a big concern to real-world power supplies applications. Instability in cascaded systems may occur due to the constant power load (CPL), which is a behavior of the tightly regulated converters. CPLs exhibit incremental negative resistance behavior causing a high risk of instability in interconnected converters; therefore, the mitigation of this problem is an important issue in the multiple-stage switched mode power supply design. Thus, it is important to guarantee stability of the whole system. However, some difficulties remains besides the CPL, e.g., non-linearities due to the inductive element and uncertainties due to imprecision of mathematical models and/or variation of nominal values of the discrete elements that compose the DC/DC buck converter. Aiming to evaluate the performance of the proposed robust methodologies in this work to mitigate the instability problem caused by a CPL, several tests were developed by using an experimental plant and Matlab/Simulink, when the multi-converter buck-buck system is subjected a variation of power reference. The results show the improved performance of the proposed methodologies.