Designing Control Loops for Linear and Switching Power Supplies: A Tutorial Guide

A control system is a complex electronics architecture involving setpoints and targets. One simple example is the cruise control system of an automobile. Rather than delving into extensive theory, this book focuses on what power electronics engineers really need to know for compensating or stabilizing a given system.

When I started writing this book, my goal was to teach readers how to build compensation structures using various types of active elements. Actually, most of the textbooks that I owned only disclosed compensation structures using operational amplifiers. In our industry, there are other active elements that can be implemented in compensators: TL431, transconductance amplifiers (OTA) and shunt regulators. I have dedicated chapters to all of these devices, including the effects of the optocoupler in the case of isolated converters.
When these chapters were over, I decided to add theoretical information on loop control. How to tackle the subject without reproducing what already exists in good textbooks? The main idea was to narrow down the text content to what an engineer should really know for his daily job. Indeed, the world of control systems is wide and you don't need to know everything for your engineering tasks. The main idea of this book is to bridge theoretical knowledge to practical reality: derive equations and put them at work in design examples. Where phase and gain margins come from, what is delay margin, how do I link PID coefficients to poles/zeros placements and so on. As usual, I derived all equations including intermediate steps so that you can easily follow the flow. The book uses power electronics examples but theory can be equally learned and applied to other engineering fields.
This book is not a substitute to classical textbooks but it can be seen as a design companion for the engineer and as a class complement for the student. Both look for a bridge between what they have learned at university and the engineering world reality. I modestly hope this book will fulfill that goal.

Christophe P. Basso
Toulouse, 2012
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