A simple digital hardware to control a PFC converter

There is increasing interest in using digital controllers for power converters. Most of them are based on DSPs. This paper presents a digital controller for a PFC converter based on a field programmable gate array (FPGA). It exploits the advantages of these devices compared to DSPs, like concurrency (simultaneous execution of all control procedures) and technology independence. The proposed controller has been modelled in VHDL and tested in an actual prototype. It has been designed as simple as possible while maintaining good accuracy and dynamic response. The results show the feasibility of using digital specific hardware for control in power converters, opening interesting possibilities in power systems