Reducing Low-Frequency Ripple Using Alternative Output Capacitor Connection on Integrated Converters for LED Drivers

Although advantageous in several aspects, the integration of converters leads to a loss of independence between the converter's stages, since both stages are controlled by the same active switch. This condition makes it impractical to adopt control techniques that act on the duty-cycle to mitigate the low-frequency ripple at the output current without distorting the line current. The low-frequency ripple transferred from the bus voltage to the LED current has been studied for integrated converters operated at constant duty-cycle. To comply with IEEE 1789–2015 recommendation, the integrated converters use large capacitors to mitigate the low-frequency ripple. Converters operating in discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) have been widely adopted because they transfer less ripple to the output than converters operating in continuous conduction mode (CCM). A novel circuit arrangement for the buck-boost power control (PC) stage integrated with a buck-boost power factor correction (PFC) stage is explored in this paper as a technique to minimize the low-frequency output ripple for converters operating at constant duty-cycle and CCM. The proposed circuit provides current feedback to the bus capacitor, acting to reduce the output current and bus voltage low-frequency ripple. A dynamic model for the proposed converter in CCM is obtained and used to determine the output current modulation as a function of converter parameters. It is shown that the proposed topology leads to a smaller low-frequency ripple than a conventional counterpart at the same operating point. A 95 W design example and a prototype supplying an LED load of 98.8 V/960 mA for the proposed circuit and the conventional counterpart are presented. The experimental results show that the proposed arrangement can achieve similar results to the conventional circuit in efficiency, THD, or semiconductor stress, while the obtained output current modulation equals to 8.66% is 3.5 times lower than that in the conventional circuit at same operating point and component values.