Transformer Secondary Voltage Based Resonant Frequency Tracking for LLC Converter

Abstract

Unregulated LLC resonant converters operating at resonant frequency have been adopted in numerous applications due to its high efficiency characteristic. However, in practice, resonant frequency operation cannot always be guaranteed due to the tolerances and variations of circuit parameters. Therefore, in this brief, a simple resonant frequency tracking method based on the transformer secondary voltage is proposed. When LLC converter operating in the below resonant frequency region, the ratio of the average transformer secondary voltage and output voltage is less than unity, while the ratio is unity at resonant frequency. By adopting this characteristic, the resonant frequency tracking is achieved by comparing the calculated voltage ratio and unity, then the switching frequency is adjusted to track the resonant frequency. To reduce the sampling circuit complexity, the rectified transformer secondary voltage is sensed, and the voltage ratio becomes 0.5 at resonant frequency. The effectiveness of the proposed resonant frequency tracking method has been experimentally validated under different scenarios.