Simple and straightforward realisation of an electronic capacitor

Abstract

This Letter proposes a simple realisation of a circuit (referred to as electronic capacitor) capable of emulating large capacitance of controllable value while utilising a much smaller capacitor and a DC–DC converter. The circuit may be used in a plug-and-play fashion instead of any real large capacitor within the control bandwidth. The proposed control algorithm forces the terminal voltage of the DC–DC converter to follow the well-known capacitance equation by sensing the terminal current and simultaneously compensates conversion losses by an auxiliary control loop. The proposed algorithm is successfully verified by emulating bulk DC-link capacitance of a commercial power factor correction front end.