A new algorithm for simulation of power electronic systems using piecewise-linear device models

This paper describes a new algorithm for simulation of power electronic systems. Piecewise-linear (PWL) approximation is used to model nonlinear components, including switching devices, nonlinear reactive components, and nonlinear control circuitry. A representation of PWL elements is constructed such that a constant system matrix is obtained, regardless of the states of PWL elements. An efficient method for state determination is proposed, which is capable of resolving difficulties caused by discontinuous characteristics of PWL elements. The resulting simulation algorithm is quite general, requires no prior knowledge of the circuit operation, is void of convergence problems, and yields relatively short simulation times on desktop PC machines.