Design and simulation of DC-DC converter for automobile LED front lighting applications

This paper presents the power stage design and simulation study of a PWM DC-DC boost converter for automobile LED front lighting systems. Automobile industry has been rapidly switching to high power LED front lighting systems as they perform better in terms of luminous flux and energy efficiency than the conventional ones. However, due to the electrical characteristics of LEDs these systems cannot be powered directly from the automobile battery. They require specialized driving circuits which can respond to the changing needs of the LEDs as their electrical properties change while maintaining the uniform brightness. So far, DC-DC switching power converters offer the easiest way to power high power LEDs and control their luminance. A switching power converter consists of a power stage and a compensation circuit. The power stage includes switches and output filter, it only performs the basic power conversion from the input voltage to the output voltage. The paper discusses the boost power stage design only and does not cover compensation network. A detailed discussion on selecting power stage component requirement is presented. MATLAB/Simulink is applied to execute the whole circuit simulation to verify the theoretical predictions hence to provide a useful guide for design engineers and researchers.