A Step-Up High-Power-Density DC/AC Converter to Drive Piezoelectric Transmitters

The piezoelectric elements are the most important component of the acoustic transmitters in underwater communication systems. A special DC/AC power supply which produces an AC high voltage level with the frequency of the 30-50 kHz is required to energize the piezoelectric senders. The transmitters must send data in a few milliseconds and stop working about a second to receive data. For this reason, the designed converter must have acceptable power density to energize the piezoelectric actuators during data sending. On the other hand, the small size of the power supplies is another prominent characteristic of a converter because the communication system engineers prefer to have a device that occupies minimum space. In this paper, a DC-DC boost converter increases the input DC voltage level up to 5 times. After that, a full-bridge converter (FBC) is used to step up the boost converter output and provide the required AC voltage for the piezoelectric transmitters. A robust controller is designed to control the power converter switches. With respect to the proposed controller operation and construction, the converter can successfully drive the piezoelectric in noisy and harsh environments. Finally, the simulation and experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the designed combined converter and robustness of the proposed controller.