Choice of power and control coupling elements for dimmable led driver for smart lighting networks

The studies in the field of smart lighting systems opens new opportunities for energy savings. Such a lighting system is based on LEDs, but the LED drivers are controllable units that allows to change illumination level (provides dimming) in accordance with a given lighting strategy thus the driver is one of the basic elements of a smart lighting system. The power and control coupling elements of non-inverting buck-boost converter based LED driver are considered in this article, but the main attention is paid to the control circuitry in particular the measurement circuitry. In the scope of this article two coupling methods have been studied experimentally: the coupling of analog signal and the coupling of digital signal. Nonlinearity tests as well as the frequency response tests have been carried out. The results of these experiments show, that the approach with the coupling of digital signal has higher frequency response, but the linearity of both methods is similar. The price of digital signal coupling circuitry is higher by approximately 25%. The evaluation of current measurement methods as well as the FET drivers are the subjects for the further studies.