Dimming Control Characteristics of Electrodeless Fluorescent Lamps

The study described in this paper was undertaken to identify the dimming control characteristics of the electrodeless fluorescent lamp. First, to accomplish this, a model of the electrodeless fluorescent lamp was made. Two kinds of dimming control methods, the variable switching frequency control method and the variable dc-link voltage control method, were then applied to the resulting model of the lamp, after which the results of the application of the two methods on the lamp model were compared. The hypotheses that were initially formulated were confirmed by the results of the experiment that was conducted on the 100-W ENDURA-type electrodeless fluorescent lamp. The results show that the lamp's dimming control of the switching frequency control is nonlinear and that of the variable dc-link voltage is linear over a wide range, and the theoretical value obtained by the proposed model well matches that of the experimental value.