Power electronics design aid system, a knowledge-based approach

The design of power electronics converters is still an ad-hoc process. Usually, this process is accomplished virtually using existing simulation packages. Despite, the use of these packages, the process is proved to be time consuming and bulky task especially for beginning designers. This paper describes an expert system approach to ease this cumbersome process by automating the design task. The present approach combines expert system techniques with object-oriented paradigm. The user of the software has firstly to choose the appropriate application of the converter among a given list of applications. Then the user has to pursue interaction process to input the requirements and answer some questions needed in order to come out with the most appropriate topology that meets the entered specifications. The topology suggested for the user is formed in a schematic file accepted by the PSpice simulation package. The topology is displayed within schematic environment containing all the circuit parameters including the best (optimum) switching devices and the control circuit. The topologies constitute the knowledge base of the system, which, is represented as objects. The switching devices are stored in database module accessed by the inference engine to select the optimum switch for a certain topology. This approach could be considered as a kernel in developing a power electronics converters design aid tool, whereby the complexity of the design process can be reduced dramatically.