A robust cascaded controller for DC-DC Boost and Cuk converters

Purpose This paper aims to propose a robust cascaded controller based on proportional-integral (PI) and continuous sliding mode control. Design/methodology/approach Cascaded control structure is an attractive control scheme for DC-DC power converters. It has a two-loop structure where the outer loop contains PI controller and the inner loop uses sliding mode control (SMC). This structure thus combines the merits of both the control schemes. However, there are some issues that have prohibited its adoption in industry, the discontinuous nature of SMC which leads to variable switching frequency operation and is hard to realize practically. This paper attempts to overcome this issue by changing the discontinuous functionality of SMC to continuous by utilizing the concept of equivalent control. Findings The robustness of the controller designed is verified by considering various cases, namely, ideal case with no uncertainties, sudden variation of input supply voltage, load resistance, reference voltage, circuit-parameters and for noise disturbance. The controller effectiveness is validated by simulating the DC-DC boost and Cuk converters in SimPowerSystems toolbox of MATLAB/Simulink. It is shown that the performance of the proposed controller is satisfactory, and both reference output voltage and inductor current are tracked with little or no sensitivity to disturbances. Originality/value The results for various scenarios are interesting and show that the controller works quite satisfactorily for all the simulated uncertainties.