Analysis of the Class DE Inverter With Thinned-Out Driving Patterns

This paper presents a numerical analysis for the Class DE inverter with eliminated driving pulses. The harmonics, low-frequency components, and power conversion efficiency are calculated and shown. The Class DE inverter is one of the high-frequency high-efficiency resonant power sources that has the hybrid features of Class D and Class E circuits. To regulate the output power while maintaining high efficiency, various methods have been proposed. Thinned-out method is one of them, which regulates the output power by eliminating the driving pulses. The principle is quite simple and is seen suitable for digital control. However, the harmonics, low-frequency components, and discontinuous regulation have been pointed out. An aim of this paper is to clarify the characteristic of the Class DE inverter with thinned-out driving patterns. Basic models with three different Q-factors of 5, 10, and 20 are designed, built, tested, and analyzed. In a series of 16 cycles of switching pulses, 1-15 cycles are eliminated. The calculated waveforms show good agreement with circuit experiments. Various waveforms, harmonics, total harmonic distortion, low-frequency components, their total, and harmonics of the lowest frequency component are calculated and discussed