Optimal design of power electronic systems using electromagnetic transient simulation

Transient simulation programs find numerous applications in the design of nonlinear systems, where they provide the designer with a powerful tool to examine the short-term transient behavior of the system and to tune the parameters. It has been shown that the a combination of a nonlinear optimization algorithm with a transient simulation program can lead to a remarkably enhanced design tool, in which the power of transient simulation is accompanied with the intelligence of a dedicated optimization program that steers the search for the optimum. This paper extends the application of this tool into the design of switching and nonlinear power electronic converters, and describes methods for the design of efficient objective functions and also proposes methods for imposing constraints on the optimization parameters. The ideas are illustrated using the example of a Cuk dc-dc converter whose control system parameters, and filter elements are simultaneously optimized