Design of variable output voltage power supply for power amplifier of underwater acoustic sensor

The paper proposes a new multilevel variable output voltage AC/DC Converter for power supply of power amplifiers used in underwater acoustic sensors. The proposed multilevel variable output voltage AC/DC Converter is composed of two converter sections. One as the input section is a high efficiency phase-shifted PWM full bridge DC-DC converter to get multiport power sources. The other as the output section is composed of two flying-capacitor 3-level DC-DC converters and a diode bridge circuit to get fast-response and multilevel variable output voltage for an envelope amplifier. The paper suggests the detailed circuit topology and design guideline of multilevel variable output voltage AC/DC converter. It also proposes the power balanced control method between 3-level converters and the voltage balanced algorithm for flying capacitors. Its characteristics should be verified by the detailed simulation results. It is anticipated that the proposed converter will work very well for power amplifiers used in underwater acoustic sensors.