Design Type II Compensation In A Systematic Way Liyu Cao, Ametek Programmable Power liyu.cao@ametek.com Type II compensators are widely used in the control loops for power converters. A type II compensator has two poles (one at the origin) and one zero, and the zero is placed somewhere between the poles. Designers use this type of compensator to provide a phase boost to the control loop. It is known that the compensator reaches its maximum phase boost at the geometric mean of the zero’s frequency and the second pole’s frequency. To design this type of compensator, the popular approach is to place the desired loop crossover frequency at the geometric mean of the zero and pole [1,2]. This approach can produce maximum phase margin from a given compensator. However, it does not take the other important loop parameter, the gain margin, into consideration. In general, to make a control loop work properly, it is necessary to have both enough phase margin and gain margin, In this sense, it is important to have a design procedure that can take care of both design parameters. In this note, a systematic design procedure is developed to design a type II compensator, which gives the designer an easy way to take both phase margin and gain margin into consideration and to adjust the compensator until the design requirement is satisfied. C1 R2 C2 R1 Vi OUT Vo + Figure 1. A type II error amplifier configuration using four passive components. Gain and phase characteristics. The schematic of a type II compensator is shown in figure 1, where four passive circuit components are needed. The transfer function of the Type II compensator in figure 1 is given by C (s ) = vo sC2 R2 + 1 =− vi R1 (C1 + C2 ) s ( sC12 R2 + 1) Equation 1 where C12 is the parallel combination of C1 and C2, 1 C12 = C1C 2 C1 + C 2 Equation 2 The transfer function in Equation (1) can be rewritten as G( C ( s) = − s( s ωz s ωp + 1) Equation 3 + 1) where the zero's and pole's frequencies are given by ωz = 1 C 2 R2 Equation 4 ωp = 1 C12 R2 Equation 5 1 R1 (C1 + C 2 ) Equation 6 The constant gain G is given by G= The amplitude of the transfer function in Equation 3 at a given frequency ω can be calculated as ω ) ωz ω 2 ) ωz G G = C ( jω ) = ω ω 1+ ( ω )2 ω (1 + j ) ωp ωp (1 + j 1+ ( Equation 7 The phase of the transfer function in Equation 3 at a given frequency ω can be calculated as ϕ [C ( jω )] = ϕ ( G ω ω ) + ϕ (1 + j ) − ϕ (1 + j ) ωp jω ωz π ω ω = − + tan − tan −1 2 ωz ωp Equation 8 −1 As can be seen, the phase of C(j ω) has two parts: a constant phase of -π/2 due to the pole at the origin, and a variable part as a function of frequency ω. The variable part is given by ϕ v (ω ) = tan −1 ω ω − tan −1 ωz ωp Equation 9 2 In [1], ϕv(ω) is defined as the phase boost of the compensator. Equation 9 can be converted to ϕ v (ω ) = tan −1 ω (ω p − ω z ) ω 2 + ω zω p Equation 10 Equation 10 has a useful feature in that the function reaches its maximum at the geometric mean of ωz and ωp. That is, ϕv(ω) reaches its maximum value at the frequency defined by ω m = ω pω z Equation 11 In the following, we call ωm the maximum phase frequency of the compensator. By substituting Equation 11 into 10, one can get the maximum phase of ϕv(ω) as ω p ω z (ω p − ω z ) ω p − ωz ϕ v (ω m ) = tan −1 = tan −1 2ω pω z 2 ω pω z Define the ratio of the pole’s frequency to the zero’s frequency as k= ωp ωz Equation 12 From Equation 10 and 11 one can see that k can also be defined as k= ωm ω p = ω z ωm Equation 13 Then the maximum phase of ϕv(ω) can be written as ϕ v (ω m ) = tan −1 k −1 Equation 14 2 k And the maximum phase of the type II compensator is given by ϕ[C ( jω m )] = − π 2 + tan −1 k −1 Equation 15 2 k We can see that k is a measure on the distance between the zero and pole, and hence we call it separation factor. With Equation 15, we can calculate the maximum phase boost of the type II compensator for a given separation factor, or vise versa. Design Procedure. Designing a type II compensator is about where to place the zero (ωz) and pole (ωp), and how to choose the constant gain G. Since three parameters are involved, selecting these parameters to meet the gain margin and phase margin may be very complicated and timeconsuming. In the following, a design approach is developed, which uses the maximum phase frequency ωm as the only parameter to "tune" the compensator and hence is very 3 simple to use. In addition, a systematic procedure is established to calculate the components' values, which can be easily implemented in some computer programs like Microsoft EXCEL. By a few times of running the procedure, the targeted phase margin and gain margin can be achieved. Given the desired crossover frequency ωc and phase margin ϕm, and the control plant’s gain and phase at ωc as Gp and ϕp. The main difference between the proposed design approach in this note and the popular approach in [1,2] is in the placement of ωm, which can be expressed in relative to the desired crossover frequency, that is, ω m = αω c Equation 16 where α is a number to be determined. For the popular approach, α is always chosen to be 1, while here α is adjustable. We can start the design with α=1, and after finishing the design check the loop gain margin. If the gain margin is not satisfied, we can adjust α and run the design procedure again. This process continues until both phase margin and gain margin meet the targets. With a selected ωm, the type II compensator can be calculated as follows. At the crossover frequency, based on Equation 10 we have ϕ v (ωc ) = tan −1 ω c (ω p − ω z ) ω c2 + ω z ω p Equation 17 To meet the phase margin requirement, we need to satisfy the following equation, − π 2 + ϕv (ωc ) + ϕ p + π = ϕ m Equation 18 From Equation 17 and 18 we can get ωc (ω p − ω z ) π tan −1 2 = ϕm − ϕ p − 2 ωc + ω z ω p or equivalently ωc (ω p − ω z ) π = tan(ϕ m − ϕ p − ) = cot(ϕ p − ϕ m ) 2 2 ωc + ω pω z Equation 19 Based on Equation 11 and Equation 19, we can get the following two equations about ωp and ωz ω z ω p = ω m2 Equation 20 ω p − ωz = ωd Equation 21 where ωd is defined by 4 ω d = (1 + α 2 )ω c cot(ϕ p − ϕ m ) . Equation 22 Note that ωd is known with the given parameters ϕm and ϕp, and the selected frequencies ωc and ωm. We can solve Equation 20 and 21, and figure out the solutions to them as follow ω z = 0.5( ω d2 + 4ω m2 − ω d ) Equation 23 ω p = 0.5( ω d2 + 4ω m2 + ω d ) . Equation 24 With ωz and ωp determined based on the above equations, we can calculate the constant gain G as follows. From Equation 7 we have C ( jω c ) = G ωc ωc 2 ) ωz ω 1+ ( c )2 ωp 1+ ( Equation 25 At the crossover frequency, C ( jω c ) G p = 1 Thus, we can calculate the compensator’s constant gain G as G= ωc Gp ωc 2 ) ωp ω 1 + ( c )2 ωz 1+ ( Equation 26 We can see that the compensator's transfer function is completely determined with the zero, pole and constant gain given by Equation 23, 24 and 26. Now we are ready to calculate the components' values. We have four components to select, but three conditions (expressed in Equation 4, 5 and 6) to constrain these components. For this reason, one component's value needs to be selected first, and then the rest of the components' values are calculated to meet Equation 4, 5 and 6. In practice the resistor R1 is usually chosen first, and this note follows this convention. Equation 4 and 5 can be converted to C 2 R2 = 1 ωz C1C 2 R2 1 = C1 + C 2 ω p Equation 27 Equation 28 And Equation 6 is equivalent to 5 C1 + C 2 = 1 GR1 Equation 29 Equation 27, 28 and 29 are the three equations to determine the components R2, C1 and C2 after R1 has been chosen. Although two of the equations are nonlinear, they can be solved easily as described below. By substituting Equation 27 and 29 into Equation 28, we can get the solution for C1 as given by C1 = ωz ω p R1G Equation 30 With C1 given, C2 can be calculated based on Equation 29 C2 = 1 − C1 GR1 Equation 31 Then from Equation 27, we can determine R2 as R2 = 1 ω z C2 Equation 32 Now we can summarize the complete design procedure in the following. 1. Select a resistor value for R1. 2. Select α and calculate the compensator's maximum phase frequency ωm using Equation 16. 3. Calculate the difference between the zero's frequency and pole's frequency using Equation 22. 4. Calculate the zero's frequency ωz and pole's frequency ωp using Equation 23 and Equation 24 respectively. 5. Calculate the compensator’s constant gain G using Equation 26. 6. Calculate C1 using Equation 30. 7. Calculate C2 using Equation 31. 8. Calculate R2 using Equation 32. 9. Plot the loop Bode plot and verify the phase margin. 10. Check the gain margin. If the gain margin is not satisfied, adjust α and go back to step 2 to re-design the compensator. 6 11. If both phase margin and gain margin are satisfactory, check the calculated components' value to see if they are reasonable (for example, not too big or too small). If some of them is not reasonable, properly change R1 and go back to step 2. 12. Standardize the components' values. An Example. Take a current-mode controlled DC-DC converter as an example. The current loop compensation design was already finished, and the measured control plant's Bode plot (under current-mode control) is shown in figure 2. The design task is to design a voltage loop compensator to achieve the target loop bandwidth of 3kHz, the phase margin of 60 degrees, and the gain margin not less than 9dB. 0 dB -20 -40 -60 1 10 2 10 3 10 4 10 5 10 200 degree 100 0 -100 -200 1 10 2 10 3 10 Hz 4 10 5 10 Figure 2. Control plant's Bode plot measured from the current set-point to the voltage feedback signal, showing one-pole characteristic due to current-mode control. As can be seen from figure 2, the control plant's gain plot basically has a –1 slope between 40Hz and 2kHz, and a zero at about 4kHz due to the output capacitor's ESR. Since this zero is very close to the target crossover frequency, it can have negative impact on the loop gain margin. First the compensator is designed using the traditional approach, that is, to place the maximum phase frequency at the loop crossover frequency. This is done by setting α=1. With this choice, the resulted voltage loop Bode plot is shown in figure 3. One can notice 7 from figure 3 that, although the loop crossover frequency is 3kHz, the gain passes through the crossover frequency with a slope larger than –1. This leads to a reduced gain margin of 7.5dB. This is not desirable since a flat crossover curve means the crossover frequency is sensitive to small amount of gain changes, and may lead to an unstable control loop. loop magnitude 100 50 X: 8902 Y: -7.473 0 -50 -100 1 10 2 3 10 10 4 10 5 10 loop phase 100 0 X: 2915 Y: -119.8 -100 X: 196.3 Y: -147.3 -200 -300 1 10 2 10 3 10 4 10 5 10 Figure 3. The voltage loop Bode plot with the popular approach (α α=1), having a quite flat crossover section. Next, the loop is redesigned by adjusting α. It is found that by setting α=0.2, the required gain margin can be reached, and the crossover section of the gain plot is also improved as shown in figure 4. As can be seen in figure 4, the crossover section has a slope close to – 1, which makes it a better loop than that of figure 3 in terms of less sensitivity to possible gain changes. It is worth to note that the difference in the phase plots between figure 3 and figure 4. As can be seen in figure 3, the phase drops to –147 degrees at about 200Hz, while in figure 4 the phase basically stays at –100 degrees at the frequencies up to 1.5kHz. From the viewpoint of unconditional stability, the loop in figure 4 is better than the loop in figure 3, since the former allows more phase drop than the later before becoming conditionally stable. 8 loop magnitude 100 50 X: 8111 Y: -9.185 0 -50 -100 1 10 2 10 3 10 4 10 5 10 loop phase 100 0 X: 2915 Y: -119 -100 -200 -300 1 10 2 10 3 10 4 10 5 10 Figure 4. The voltage loop Bode plot with α=0.2, showing an improved crossover section and gain margin. Summary. A new design approach has been developed for designing a type II compensator. Unlike the traditional approach, the new approach allows the maximum phase frequency to be different from the loop crossover frequency. By adjusting the maximum phase frequency, not only the phase margin but also the gain margin can be taken into consideration. References. 1. D. Venable, The K factor: A new mathematical tool for stability analysis and synthesis, Proceeding of Powercon 10, 1983. 2. D. Venable, Venable Technical Paper #3, Optimum feedback amplifier design for control systems. About the author Liyu Cao is a Sr. Engineer at Ametek Programmable Power, where he is engaged with designing programmable DC and AC power supplies and control loops. Liyu holds a Ph.D degree in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. 9