Investigating stability and bifurcations of a boost PFC circuit under peak current mode control

A new instability phenomenon is detected for a peak current controlled boost power factor correction (PFC) circuit. This phenomenon is studied by using an averaged continuous time model. Time domain waveforms, trajectories in the state space and Poincare sections are used to uncover the slow scale instability (Hopf bifurcation) at the line frequency. The results are obtained from the averaged model and then validated by the exact circuit diagram switched model. Some guidelines for an optimized stable design and a power factor close to one are outlined.