Efficient simulation of DC-DC switch-mode power converters by multirate partial differential equations

TL;DR

This paper introduces a multirate PDE-based method for efficiently simulating DC-DC switch-mode power converters, utilizing Galerkin solutions with novel PWM basis functions to improve accuracy and computational speed.

Contribution

The paper presents a new MPDE-based simulation approach with excitation-specific PWM basis functions for better efficiency in power electronics modeling.

Findings

The method achieves high accuracy in buck converter simulations.

It significantly reduces computational time compared to traditional methods.

Convergence and stability are confirmed through numerical analysis.

Abstract

In this paper, Multirate Partial Differential Equations (MPDEs) are used for the efficient simulation of problems with 2-level pulsed excitations as they often occur in power electronics, e.g., DC-DC switch-mode converters. The differential equations describing the problem are reformulated as MPDEs which are solved by a Galerkin approach and time discretization. For the solution expansion two types of basis functions are proposed, namely classical Finite Element (FE) nodal functions and the recently introduced excitation-specific pulse width modulation (PWM) basis functions. The new method is applied to the example of a buck converter. Convergence, accuracy of the solution and computational efficiency of the method are numerically analyzed.