Design and Implementation of a digitally-controlled

LLC resonant converter for battery charging

applications
Chun-Liang Liu

Yi-Hsun Chiu

Yi-Feng Lo

Shun-Chung Wang

Yi-Hua Liu

Department of Electrical
Engineering, NTUST
Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C

Department of Electrical
Engineering, NTUST
Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C

D10007201@mail.ntust.edu.tw

D10107203@mail.ntust.edu.tw

Green Electronics Design &

Application Dept., Division
for Biomedical & Industrial
IC Technology, ICL, ITRI
Hsinchu, Taiwan, R.O.C
YFLuo@itri.org.tw

Lunghwa University of Science

and Technology, Taoyuan
County, Taiwan, R.O.C
wangsc@mail.lhu.edu.tw

Department of Electrical
Engineering, NTUST
Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C
yhliu@mail.ntust.edu.tw

AbstractIn this paper, a digitally-controlled LLC resonant

converter is developed for LEV battery charging applications.
LLC resonant converter boasts the advantages of high efficiency
and wide input voltage range; therefore is a suitable candidate
for medium power battery charger.
To enhance the
performance of the developed battery charger, five-step constant
current (CC) charging method is implemented in the proposed
digital controller. Experimental results show that the proposed
charger can successfully realize the five-step CC charging
algorithm, and the measured conversion efficiencies of the
designed LLC resonant converter are all higher than 88% under
all output voltage and load conditions

I.

II.

INTRODUCTION

Due to the continuous growth of the global energy demand

and the increasing concern about environmental issues,
interests in using and developing zero emission light electrical
vehicle (LEV) are growing. For LEV, secondary batteries
play a significant part in energy storage solutions. The
performance and longevity of secondary batteries depend on
the quality of their chargers. Therefore, designing a good
charger for secondary batteries is essential. The objectives of
a high-quality charger include high efficiency, long cycle life
and short charging time [1-3]. The commonly adopted
charging method for secondary batteries is the constant
current- constant voltage (CC-CV) method. For CC-CV
method, large constant current is applied at the beginning of
the charging cycle. When the battery voltage increases to a
maximum allowable value, the charger switches to constant
voltage charging mode and continues in that mode until the
termination criterion is satisfied. However, constant voltage
charging part seriously extends the charging time and also
reduces the cycle life of the battery.
In this paper, a digitally-controlled LLC resonant converter
is developed for LEV battery charging applications. The LLC
resonant topology allows for zero voltage switching (ZVS) of
the main switches, therefore dramatically lowering switching
losses and boosting efficiency [4-6]. To enhance the
performance of the developed battery charger, five-step
constant current (CC) charging method is utilized in this paper.
The five-step CC charging algorithm is proven to have the

978-1-4673-1792-4/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

advantages of longer cycle life, higher charge/discharge

energy efficiency, and shorter charging time [7, 8]. In addition,
the dsPIC33FJ16GS502 from Microchip corp. is used as the
digital variable frequency controller of the LLC series
resonant converter [9]. The advantages of the digital
controller include components cost reduction and more design
flexibility. Experimental results show that the proposed
charger can successfully realize the five-step CC charging
algorithm, and the measured conversion efficiencies of the
designed LLC resonant converter are all higher than 88%
under all output voltage and load conditions.
SYSTEM CONFIGURATION

Fig. 1 shows the block diagram of the proposed charger

system. In Fig. 1, the input power source of the proposed Liion battery charger is a 400 V DC voltage from the power
factor corrector (PFC) stage, and the battery pack used is a 48
V, 22 Ah lead-acid battery module for light electric vehicles.
Fig. 2 shows the hardware configuration of the proposed
charger. In Fig. 2, the dsPIC33FJ16GS502 digital signal
controller (DSC) from Microchip Corp. is used to implement
the charging algorithm, provide the required gating signals for
the power switches in the power converter and then gather and
analyze data from the data acquisition circuit. PWM
modulation strategies and interfacing IC driving signals are
also realized using the DSC to achieve better performance.
From Fig. 2, the whole system can be divided into three major
parts: input/output interfacing unit, digital controller unit and
power converter unit. Detailed descriptions about each unit
will be given in the following sections:
a. Input/output interfacing unit: I/O interfacing unit
includes feedback circuit which is used to measure the voltage
and current information from the battery side and signal
conditioning circuits which performs amplification and range
adaptation on feedback signals. It should be noted that for
conventional LLC resonant converter, only one feedback
signal (output voltage or output current) is required. However,
for battery charging applications, both battery voltage and
battery current information is essential.

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b. Digital controller unit: digital controller unit controls

the charging current command according to the measured data.
The digital controller gathers and analyzes battery status data
(voltage, current) and then determines the necessary charging
current. The digital filter and digital PID-control algorithm
are also implemented in the digital controller. The digital
controller computes the gating signals of the power converter
according to the charging current command and current
feedback information.
Detailed descriptions about the
software flowchart of the proposed digital controller will be
provided in section IV.
c. Power converter unit: power converter unit is used to
supply the electric power to the battery pack. As shown in Fig.
1, a LLC resonant converter is used as the charging unit. By
adequately controlling the PWM gating signal, the power
converter unit can transfer the required energy to the lead-acid
battery pack. LLC resonant converter is adopted as a battery
charger due to its low EMI noise, high power integration and
high efficiency. Detailed descriptions about the operating
modes of the proposed LLC resonant converter will be
provided in section III.

Fig. 1: The block diagram of the proposed charger system

energy flows through the resonant tank and transformer and to

the load. This mode ends when iLr current is the same as iLm
current. Output current reach zero.
(2) Mode 2 (t1 < t < t2)at t=t1, , the two inductor current

iLr and iLm are equal. Output current reaches zero. Both
output rectifier diodes D1 and D2 is reverse biased.
Transformer secondary voltage is lower than output voltage.
Output is separated from transformer. During this period,
since output is separated from primary, Lm is freed to
participate resonant. This mode ends when S1 is turned off.
(3) Mode 3 (t2 < t < t3)at t=t2, S1 is turned off. During
this mode, S1 and S2 are both off. The resonant current iLr
charges (discharges) the parasitic capacitance Coss1 ( Coss 2 ) of
the power switches. When the voltage across Coss1 equals Vin,
the body diode of S2 is turned on.
(4) Mode 4 (t3 < t < t4)The body diode of S2 is turned on
in previous mode, which creates a ZVS condition for S2. Gate
signal of S2 should be applied during this mode. When S2 is
turned on, iLr decreases and this will force secondary diode
D2 conduct and iout begin to increase. Also, from this moment,
transformer sees output voltage on the secondary side. Lm is
clamped with constant voltage V p = n Vout , so it doesnt
participate resonant during this period.
For next half cycle, the operation is same as analyzed
above and is omitted here.

Fig. 2: The hardware configuration of the proposed charger

III.

LLC RESONANT CONVERTER

From Fig. 2, the primary side of the LLC resonant

converter is a half-bridge configuration. The secondary side is
a center-tapped rectifier followed by a capacitive filter.
Switches S1 and S2 are both driven by 50 % duty cycle gating
signals, with a small amount of dead time introduced between
the consecutive transitions. The circuit has three passive
components, Lr, Cr and Lm, where Lm is the magnetizing
inductance that acts as a shunt inductor, Lr is the series
resonant inductor, and Cr is the resonant capacitor.

Fig. 3 Typical waveforms of LLC Resonant Converter

Fig. 3 shows the typical waveforms of the presented LLC

resonant converter. From Fig. 3, the operation of half of
switching cycle can be divided into four modes.
(1) Mode 1 (t0 < t < t1)at t=t0, S1 turned on. During this
mode, output rectifier diode D1 conduct. The transformer
voltage is clamped at Vo. Lm is linearly charged with output
voltage, so it doesnt participate resonant during this period
and V p = n Vout . The current iLr and iLm increases. The

IV.

SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION OF THE PROPOSED

CHARGER

In this paper, the dsPIC33FJ16GS502 DSC from

Microchip corp. is used as the digital controller. The output
voltage and current are sensed through the built-in analog-todigital (ADC) converter and the measured output current will
be fed into a PID controller to determine the controller output.
This controller output is then converted into PWM signals

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using the built-in PWM module and utilized to drive the

power switches of the half-bridge LLC resonant converter.
Fig. 4 shows the software flowchart of the proposed system.
From Fig. 4, the main tasks of the dsPIC controller include:
Performing digital filter and digital PID controller
Provide the gating signals of LLC resonant converter
Performing five-step constant current charging
The digital filter and digital controller are performed
every 10s. The switching frequency of the proposed power
stage is between 50 kHz and 150kHz. The digital filter used
in the proposed system is a 16-order finite impulse response
(FIR) filter for both voltage and current feedback signal [10,
11]. The equation describing a FIR filter can be expressed as
in (1).

should be fixed as a constant value. However, for the

presented digital controller, the output of PID controller
should be fed into the Period register while the PDC register
should be set as half the value of that in Period register to
obtain 50 % duty cycle.

T 1

y[n] = ak x[n k ]

(1)

k =0

where x is the filter input, y is the filter output and ak is

the corresponding coefficient of the designed FIR filter.
The digital PID controller is used to calculate the
required PWM command.
A simple incremental PID
controller is utilized in this paper and the utilized PID control
algorithm can be designed as in (2).
u(n) = KP (e(n) e(n 1)) + KI e(n)
(2)
+ KD (e(n) 2e(n 1) + e(n 2))

where e(n) is the error signal and u(n) is the output of

the PID controller.
According to the literatures, multistage constant-current
charging algorithm has the advantages such as longer cycle
life, higher charge/discharge efficiency and shorter charging
time.
Therefore, five-step CC charging algorithm is
implemented in the proposed battery charger system. Fig. 5
illustrates the concept of the five step CC charging pattern
used in this paper. From Fig. 5, the total charging period is
divided into five stages. In each stage, the charging current is
set to a pre-determined value. During charging, the voltage
of battery will increase. When the voltage exceeds the preset
limit voltage VTR , the stage number will increase and a new
charging current set value will be applied accordingly. The
same procedure will continue until stage number reaches 5.
In summary, the gating signals of power switch are
determined by the difference of feedback current and current
command using the PID controller and the stage number
which is determined by the feedback battery voltage.
It should be noted that the LLC resonant converter
works with variable frequency control. That is, LLC resonant
converter regulates their output voltage by changing the
frequency of the gating signals so that the impedance of the
resonant circuit changes. Therefore, the switching frequency
instead of the duty cycle is chosen as the control variable for
the proposed LLC resonant converter. This concept can be
illustrated as follows. Fig. 6 shows the PWM module built in
dsPIC33FJ16GS502. For conventional PWM controller, the
output of PID controller should be fed into the PWM Duty
Cycle (PDC) register while the Period register in Fig. 6

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Fig. 4 Software flowchart of the proposed charger

Fig. 5 Software flowchart of the five-step CC charging

method

(a) light load (1 A)

(VGS: 10 V/div, VDS: 200 V/div, Vp: 200 V/div, ir: 5 A/div, Time: 10 s/div)

Fig. 6 PWM module in dsPIC33FJ16GS502 [9]

V.

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

In order to verify the correctness of the proposed system,

some experiments are carried out. The specification of the
presented prototype system is
Input voltage: 380~420 Vdc
Output voltage: 44~52 Vdc
Maximum output current: 10 A
Fig. 7 shows the turn on transient of S1. Observing Fig.
7, the proposed LLC resonant converter can achieve ZVS.
Fig. 8 and Fig. 9 show the measured key waveforms of the
proposed LLC resonant converter. In Fig. 8, the input voltage
is fixed as 380 Vdc and the load varies from light load to full
load. In Fig. 9, the load current is fixed as 5 A (half-load)
and the input voltage varies from 380 V to 420 V. From Fig.
8 and Fig. 9, the proposed system operates in LLC resonant
mode correctly. Fig. 10 and Fig. 11 show the measured
efficiency of the proposed LLC resonant converter under
minimum and maximum output voltage. From Fig. 10 and 11,
the efficiency of the proposed LLC resonant converter is all
higher than 88 %. Fig. 12 shows the recorded voltage/current
profile for the proposed five-step CC charging algorithm.
From Fig. 12, the proposed charger can accurately follow the
charging command. Fig. 13 shows the photo of the proposed
system.

(b) full load (10 A)

(VGS: 10 V/div, VDS: 200 V/div, Vp: 200 V/div, ir: 5 A/div, Time: 10 s/div)

Fig. 8 Measure key waveforms of the proposed LLC resonant

converter when Vin is fixed (Vin = 380 V)

(a) Vin=380 V
(VGS: 10 V/div, VDS: 200 V/div, Vp: 500 V/div, ir: 5 A/div, Time: 4 s/div)

(b) Vin=420 V
(VGS: 10 V/div, VDS: 200 V/div, Vp: 500 V/div, ir: 5 A/div, Time: 4 s/div)

Fig. 7 The turn on transient of S1

(VGS10 V/div, VDS200 V/div, Time4 s/div)

Fig. 9 Measure key waveforms of the proposed LLC resonant

converter when load is fixed (load current = 5 A)

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digitally-controlled LLC resonant converter can operate in

both constant output voltage mode and constant output
current mode. Five-step constant current charging pattern is
also realized in this paper. According to the experimental
results, the conversion efficiencies of the proposed LLC
resonant converter are all higher than 88% under all load
conditions, and the proposed charger can accurately follow
the charging command.

96
95

(% )

94
93
92
91
90
1

380V

5
6
Output Current(A)
400V

10

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
420V

This work was sponsored by the R&D Piloting Cooperation

Projects between Industries and Academia at the Hsinchu
Science Park, project number: 101A21

Fig. 10 Measured efficiency of the proposed LLC resonant

converter (Vo= 44 V)

REFERENCES
[1]

L. R. Chen, "A Design of an Optimal Battery Pulse Charge System by

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[9] Microchip
Technology
Inc.,"
dsPIC33FJ06GS101/X02
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Fig. 11 Measured efficiency of the proposed LLC resonant

converter (Vo= 52 V)

Fig. 12 Recorded voltage/current profile for the proposed

charging algorithm

Fig. 13 Photo of the proposed system

VI.

CONCLUSION

In this paper, a digitally-controlled LLC resonant

converter is developed for LEV battery charging applications.
The LLC resonant topology allows for zero voltage switching
of the main switches, thereby dramatically lowering
switching losses and boosting efficiency. The proposed

808