Design of practical sliding-mode controllers with constant switching frequency for power converters

A novel experimentally motivated method in order to design a family of easy-to-implement sliding-mode controllers for power converters is proposed. Two main results are presented. First, the relation between sliding-mode control and average control is reinterpreted so that the limitation of the switching frequency for the closed-loop system is achieved in a more direct way than other methods so far reported in the literature. For this purpose, a class of sliding surfaces which makes the associated equivalent control be the system average control is proposed. Second, the achievement of a constant switching frequency in the controlled system is assured without requiring the sliding-mode-based controller to be modified, unlike most previous works. As a result, the proposed sliding surfaces-type can be directly implemented via a pulse-width modulator. The control methodology is implemented for the voltage control in a boost converter prototype in which the load is considered unknown. Experimental results confirm high performance and robustness under parameters variation. Furthermore, the solution proposed is easy to implement and well-suited for other power converters.