New Modulated Carrier Controlled PFC Boost Converter

A new modulated carrier control (MCC) method is proposed in this paper for a power factor correction (PFC) boost converter, which provides high power factor (PF) and low total harmonic distortion (THD) in wide input voltage and load range. The proposed MCC method employs a zero current duration (ZCD) demodulator that detects ZCD in each switching cycle to estimate current conduction duration of the boost inductor. Using the estimated signal of the ZCD demodulator, the proposed controller generates a compensated duty signal with a PFC converter to properly operate in continuous conduction mode (CCM) or discontinuous conduction mode (DCM). Unlike the conventional MCC PFC converter where the line current is distorted in DCM resulting in poor PF and high THD, the proposed MCC method can provide higher PFC performance regardless of CCM and DCM while maintaining the simple control loop of conventional MCC control method that does not require inner current loop and using relatively small inductance. In this paper, the operational principle of the proposed method has been discussed. To verify the proposed method, it has been tested on a 400-W PFC boost converter.