Analysis of a High Power Factor Single Phase Boost

Rectifier

Muhamad Iskandar Bin Ismail

Faculty of Electrical Engineering
Universiti Teknologi MARA Malaysia
40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
e-mail: isron_87@yahoo.com
 Abstract— This paper
presents a single phase
boost rectifier with high
power factor and lower
total harmonic distortion.
The purpose of this paper
is to operate the rectifier
close to unity power factor
and with low total
harmonic distortion by
using active power factor
correction. Type of active
power factor correction
used is boost converter
technique. The converter
and its mode of operation
are analyzed and discussed
in this paper. The method
of control is explained. The
feasibility of the converter
is shown with simulation
from MATLAB
SIMULINK and
experimental results
obtained from a prototype
that been made.
Keywords- Boost
rectifier; power-factor
correction; active power
factor; switch-mode
rectifiers; discontinuous
conduction mode.
I. INTRODUCTION
In an electric power
system, a load with low
power factor draws more
current than a load with a
high power factor for the
same amount of useful
power transferred. The
higher currents increase the
energy lost in the
distribution system and it
requires larger wires and
other equipment. The cost of
this problem will make the
electrical utilities charge a
higher cost to industrial or
commercial customers when
there is a low power factor.
Linear loads with low
power factor such as
induction motors can be
corrected with a passive
network of capacitors or
inductors. Non-linear loads,
such as rectifiers, distort the
current drawn from the
system. In such cases, active
or passive power factor
correction may be used to
counteract the distortion and
raise power factor. Usually,
the devices for correction of
power factor are at a central
substation, spread out over a
distribution system, or built
into power-consuming
equipment.
An active power factor
correction (active PFC) is a
power electronic system that
controls the amount of
power drawn by a load in
order to obtain a power
factor as close as possible to
unity. In most applications,
the active PFC controls the
input current of the load so
that the current waveform is
sinusoidal with the input
voltage. The purpose of
making the power factor as
close to unity as possible is
to make sure that the power
factor corrected appear
purely resistive which mean
that apparent power are
equal to the real power. In
this case, the voltage and
current are in phase and the
reactive power consumption
is zero. This enables the
most efficient delivery of
electrical power from the
power company to the
consumer.
The type of active PFC
approach in this paper is
Boost converter. For reasons
of simplicity and its
popularity, the boost
converter is used to improve
the power factor. In boost
circuit, the switching device
handles only a portion of the
output power and this
property can be used to
increase the efficiency of the
converter. Therefore, it
became a trend to implement
an ac-dc converter by boost
converter between a diode
rectifier bridge and a dc-bus
capacitor as shown in Figure
1.It is most popular topology
by previous researcher [3-7].
Figure 1: Standard boost PFC
converter.
The circuit proposed is
using Power MOSFET as
the main switch. A Power
MOSFET is a specific type
of metal oxide
semiconductor field-effect
transistor (MOSFET) which
designed to handle large
amounts of power compared
to the other power
semiconductor devices such
as IGBT, and thyristor. Its
main advantages are high
commutation speed and
good efficiency at low
voltages [3].The main reason
to used Power MOSFET in
the circuit is because it can
switch at very high speed.
Single-phase diode bridge
rectifiers now are designed
with boost rectifier
technique. This technique
has used a Pulse Width
Modulation (PWM) method.
By using PWM method, it
will make the rectifier to
maintain a sinusoidal input
current at near unity power
factor and to satisfy the
necessary harmonic
standards. There is two type
of operation for rectifier
system. It is continuous
conduction mode (CCM)
and discontinuous
conduction mode(DCM).The
circuit proposed are using
DCM operation.DCM is
choose compared to CCM
because of compared with
the CCM approach, a
converter operating in DCM
provides a simpler control
scheme, which requires only
one control loop to modulate
the on-time[4]. Furthermore,
operating a boost converter
in discontinuous mode
avoids the output diode
reverse recovery problem
and alleviates the high
switching loss in continuous
mode operation [4].
The purpose of this paper
is to propose a lower
harmonic reduction and the
correction of power factor.
In the proposed method,
only one active switch has
been used in order to
perform active current wave-
shaping by injected the error
from supply current to shape
the pulsating supply current
to a sinusoidal form and in-
time phase with supply
voltage The proposed
concept has been simulated
on MATLAB/SIMULINK
software. The simulation is
presented.
II. METHODOLOGY
A. Proposed circuit.
Fig.2 shows a circuit
configuration of an AC to
DC converter, where the
proposed technique is
applied. The main circuit
consists of a single
semiconductor power switch
which is MOSFET, a boost
inductor, a single-phase
rectifier, a diode, a filter
capacitor and resistance. The
control circuit consists of
two sensors which is voltage
sensor and current sensor, a
comparator, a peripheral
interface controller (PI) and
drive circuit of the
MOSFET. This controller
was used for control and
synthesizes the injected
current.
 inductor current will sum of the error (difference
diverts through the between the output and
C. Mode of controller
diode and reverse desired set-point) and the
operation
voltage of output integral of that value. There
voltage and input There is three part is three different component
voltage is impressed of system used for the implemented in the PI
across the inductor controller of proposed controller system in
causing a linear fall in circuit. It is current proposed circuit. It is PI,
an inductor current. sensor, PI controller comparator and carrier
and switching mode. signal. This is represented in
Energy stored in the
the block diagram as shown
inductor is used for
1) Current Sensor in Figure 5.
charging the output
capacitor and hence System
transfer the energy. This system consists
Because of this of four different
Figure 2: The proposed circuit process, output components that
voltage, Vo is higher includes current Figure 5: Block diagram of PI
than the input voltage, sensor, absolute value Controller
B. Mode of operation block, and reference
Vin. Fig 3(b) shows the
The mains AC input voltage and subtract. 3) Switching mode
equivalent circuit
voltage is filter by Figure 4 show the
when switched OFF.
inductor and rectified component of current There is a single switch
by Diode Bridge. After sensor system. operate in the proposed
During switched ON, circuit. Type of switch used
that, the rectified
the inductor current is is MOSFET. The PWM
voltage will go to the
linearly rise from Imin to technique is used to drive the
Boost converter, which
Imax. During switched switch or ON-OFF
mainly consists of an
OFF energy from operation. By PWM
inductor, a power
inductor and from technique, it will provide
MOSFET, a power Figure 4: Block diagram of
supply will transfer to Current Sensor system. gating signal to the
diode and a bulk
the load. Because of MOSFET and provide the
capacitor. When switch
that, the inductor The supply current, switching functions to
is turned “ON”, the compensate the distorted
current will linearly fall Is measured and sense
rectified AC Voltage supply current into a
from Imax to Imin. This by sensor and will fed
will through an sinusoidal form.
falling current is to absolute value
inductor and causing a
known as injection block. The absolute
linear rise in current.
current. value block is used to D. Analysis and design
During this period, the
current rise linearly produce only positive
from a minimum level waveform side since These sections explain
(Imin) to a maximum the proposed circuit is analysis of the output
level (Imax).At the designed used voltage between input
same time, a power unipolar switching. The voltage and the parameter
diode is reversed positive side waveform used for the technique. The
biased by the output will compare with calculation for determined
voltage and the load reference voltage by power factor has been
(a) using a subtractor. The shown.
current is supplied
entirely by the error produced from
the subtraction will fed 1) Relationship between
capacitor. Fig 3(a)
to PI controller. output voltage and input
shows the equivalent
voltage of the converter.
circuit when switched
ON. 2) PI controller
The relationship has been
In control engineering, a derived based on ON-OFF
During Turned “OFF” operation of the circuit.
PI Controller (proportional-
operation, the current (b) During Turn ON operation
integral controller) is a
in inductor cannot Figure 3: Equivalent circuit feedback controller which as shown in Figure 3(a), the
change of the system when
drives the plant to be voltage across the
instantaneously. The (a)Switching is “ON”
(b)Switching is “OFF” controlled with a weighted inductor VL becomes:
 VdδTL =(Vo-Vd)(T-ton)L conclude that the amplitude Table 4: The effect of Kp and Ki for
output voltage and total harmonic
VL=LdiLdt=Vd of switching frequency does distortion
(1) (9) not affect the output voltage
but effect the harmonic Ki=1.2Kp Vo(V) THD (
Where Vd is the rectified Vo-VdTT-ton ,ton=δT, distortion. 180 63 9.87
input voltage, hence integral where δ is duty ratio 360 63 5.67
600 63 3.36
both side will becomes: (10) Table 2: The effect of amplitude of
switching frequency for 840 63 2.47
output voltage and 1080 63 2.14
ILminILmaxdiL=VdL0tondt Hence, harmonic distortion 1200 63 2.03

Vo=Vd(11-δ) Amplitude of Output Voltage,

switching frequency Vo(V) 3) Power factor
(2) 20 63
(11) 30 63 p.f.=1(1+THD2)
ILmax-ILmin=VdtonL 40 63 (13)
50 63
2) Analysis between 60 63
(3) output voltage and the 70 63 Where;
∆Il=VdδTL control parameter. p.f. = power factor
Gain is used to reduce the THD = total harmonic
(4) The relationship of the value of supply voltage in distortion
When Power MOSFET is output voltage has been order to do a subtraction
switched off for a time toff as E. Experimwental testing
figure out by increasing the process. The value of supply
shown in figure 3(b), the value of each parameter in will multiply with the gain
inductor current diverts controller system. The effect before going to the A laboratory prototype
through the diode and a has been study using subtractor. Table 3 show the was built simply to verify
effect the output voltage the operation of the
Switching Output Total Harmonic when change the value of proposed technique and to
frequency(KHz) voltage(Vo) Distortion, THD (%) gain. prove the concepts discussed
in this paper. The converter
Table 3: The effect of gain for was implemented with Li =
20 65 3.37 output voltage and total 1mH, Lb=2.77mH and Co =
30 63 3.48 harmonic distortion 1000μF.IRF1830G
50 63 3.10
100 63 3.10 Gain Vo(V)
300 63 2.2
500 63 1.82 1/20 63
1000 63 1.71 1/30 55
1/40 50
reverse voltage (Vo – Vd) is Simulation 1/50 45
impressed across the MATLAB/SIMULINK. 1/100 40
inductor causing a linear fall
in current IL. The inductor Table 1 show the effect of MOSFET were used as
voltage VL becomes: output voltage and total From table 3, it shows that switch and 1N4001 diodes
harmonic distortion when output voltage is reducing were used as the diodes. The
VL=Vd-Vout=LdiLdt varies the value of switching when the value of gain is operational amplifier (op
frequency. reduced. It obviously can say amp) UA741 is used for
(5) that output voltage is subtractor, PI controller and
Table 1: The effect of switching depending on the value of comparator circuit. Figure 5
frequency for output voltage and
input voltage. show the diagram of
ILmaxILmindiL=Vd- harmonic distortion
connection for doing the
VoLtonTdt
From table 1, it shows that Table 4 show the effect of experiment.
(6)
when value of switching the internal parameter of PI
ILmin-ILmax=(Vd-Vo)(T- frequency is increased, there controller (Kp and Ki) to the
ton)L is no change in output output voltage and total
(7) voltage. However, there is harmonic distortion (THD).
reduce in Total harmonic It can conclude that PI
ILmax-ILmin=(Vo-Vd)(T- Distortion (THD).While,
controller does not affect the
ton)L Table 2 show the effect of
(8) output voltage and total output voltage. It just affects
harmonic distortion when the THD.
Equation (4) = (8) thus varies the amplitude of
switching frequency. It can
 of 0.605.Using the proposed
technique, the waveform is
now continuous. The THD
level reduces to 3.37% with
almost unity power factor
achieved.

Figure 5: Experiment set-up

III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

In order to verify the Figure 10: MATLAB/SIMULINK
operational principles and Figure 8: MATLAB/SIMULINK
Result for Harmonic spectrum after
Result for Harmonic Spectrum
test the performance of the before
Implementation.THD=3.37%
proposed AC/DC converter, Figure 6: MATLAB/SIMULINK Implementation.THD=131.45%
the computer simulation is Result for Supply Current
and Voltage Waveform before
done by using MATLAB Implementation.
SIMULINK and tested
experimentally .The result
has been build based on
before the implementation
and after the implementation
of power factor correction.
The entire elements used in
simulation are listed in Table
5.

Table 5: List and the value of

parameters used in simulation Figure 9: MATLAB/SIMULINK
Result for Supply Current and
Parameter Value Voltage Waveform after
Supply voltage 40V(p-p) Implementation.
Output Voltage(Vo) 63V (a)
Input Inductor(Li) 1mH
Boost Inductor(Lb) 2.77mH
Output Capacitor 1000uF
Switching Frequency 20KHz

Figure 6 and 9 shows the

supply current before and
after implementation of the
proposed circuit. It show that
power factor correction
occur after implemented the
proposed technique. Figure
11 show the experimental
waveform for supply voltage
and supply current. While,
Figure 8 and 10 shows the
FFT analysis that show total
harmonic distortion for input Figure 9: MATLAB/SIMULINK (b)
current. Before the Figure 7: MATLAB/SIMULINK Result for Supply Current (I
Result for Supply Current (I supply*10) and Voltage Waveform
implementation, the total after Implementation
Figure 11: Experiment result
supply*10) and Voltage Waveform for supply voltage and
harmonic distortion (THD) before Implementation. supply current for (a) before
was found approximately at
131.45% with a power factor
 implementation (b) after I. FUTURE WORK [10]H. A. C. Braga and D. technique,” IEEE Trans. Power
implementation AND Dambois, “A 3-kW unity- Electron., vol.14, pp. 209-217,
RECOMMENDATION power-factor rectifier based on Jan.1999.
Table 6: Table of input current a two-cell boost converter using
Harmonic for IEE STD 519 and For the future a new parallel connection
proposed circuit improvement of power
factor correction, EMI filter
Harmonic Harmonic Current isforrecommended.
IEEE This filter
Spectrum STD 519(%) reduces the harmonic
1 4
3 4 current, which means that
5 4 the non-linear device will
7 4 looks like a linear load and
9 4 will become high power
11 2 factor.
13 2
15 2
17 1.5
19 1.5 II. REFERENCE

[1] Electromagnetic Compability

Figure 12 shows the
input current harmonic
spectrum with respect
to the IEEE STD 519-1992
harmonic limits. It
proves that the
proposed circuit
follows the IEEE STD
519-1992 limits.
Figure 12: Input current Harmonic
spectrum.
Table 7: Result for THD and power
factor before implementation and
after implementation.
Parameter Before Implementation
Total Harmonic
Distortion(THD)
Power Factor(p.f)
IV. CONCLUSION
A Single-phase AC-DC
Boost rectifier has been
presented in this paper. It
features include near-unity
power-factor operation and
less Harmonic distortion. In
this paper, the modes of
operation of the converter
has been explained and
analyzed, and the results of
the analysis have been used
to derive a design procedure.
The rectifier work with near
unity power factor and less
Harmonics distortion. The
proposed technique method
has been verified by
computer Simulation study.
(EMC)-Part 3: Limits-Section
for Harmonic Current
Emissions (Equipment Input
Current <= 16 per Phase),
IEC/EN 61000-3-2, 1995.
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Recommended Practices and
Requirements for Harmonic
Control in Electric Power
Systems,” © Institute of
Electrical and Electronics
Engineers, Inc. 1993.
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switching vs. soft switching: A
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(THD) in Single-Phase Boost
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