Active Gate Control with Synthesized Signals to Avoid Overshoots and Ringing in DC-to-DC Converters

Abstract:
The high-frequency switching of power transistors causes electromagnetic disturbances and power losses in power electronic systems. In this paper, a method is presented to reduce the generation of these disturbances while maintaining a high efficiency by applying optimized gate control signals. This is realized by injecting synthesized signals to the gate via an arbitrary waveform generator and an amplifier circuit. The improved control signal is found by a heuristic optimization algorithm. The method is applied to a boost converter setup. Measurement results are presented showing the promising capabilities of the method.