The 2010 International Power Electronics Conference

A New PWM Dimmer Using Two Active Switches for AC LED Lamp
Hye-Man Jung*, Jong-Hyun Kim**, Byoung-Kuk Lee*, and Dong-Wook Yoo**
* SungKyunKwan University, 300 Cheoncheon-dong, Jangan-gu, Suwon-si, Gyeonggi-do, Korea ** Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute, 28-1 Sungju-dong, Changwon-si, Gyeongsangnam-do, Korea AbstractThis paper presents a new dimmer using only two active switches for AC LED lamp. The control method of the proposed dimmer is pulse width control (PWM) method. Compared with the conventional phase- controlled dimmer, the proposed PWM dimmer can produce sine wave and it does not cause harmonics problem. Furthermore, the proposed control method does not amplify the light flicker due to independence of the input voltage. Therefore, the proposed PWM dimmer can be used as the AC LED lamps dimmer instead of the conventional phase-controlled dimmer. The experimental result shows that the proposed PWM dimmer has good performances. Index TermsAC LED, PWM, THD, Flicker, Triac.

I. INTRODUCTION Nowadays, energy saving, carbon reduction, and environmental protection recently have became a common consensus of every country. To comply with these energy policies, lower power consumption, higher lumen efficiency, longer lifespan, and lower pollution are the most important demands for new light sources. Therefore, the enlarged general lighting market interests in the usage of semiconductor light source, such as LED (Light Emitting Diode). Till now, a new LED has been developed by improving LED chip package production processes. It is called AC LED. Fig. 1 shows the AC LED and it is the worlds first semiconductor light source, which is operated directly from AC power without a converter. This makes it suitable for many residential and commercial lighting applications where the main source of available power is AC [1].

Fig. 1. The AC LEDs (AC directly driven).

The dimmer is a power electronic device for lighting control and is used in various applications including industrial and residential lighting control. The use of dimmers brings many advantages to consumers. One advantage is that the use of dimmers is very convenient. Another advantage of using dimmers is energy conservation. Up to now phase-controlled dimmers using

a triac (or two thyristors) have been treated as the main technique for lighting control. And their circuits have been developed by using forward and reverse phasecontrolled approaches [2]. In the forward phase-controlled dimmers, the triac is triggered into conduction at some point during the ac half-cycle and continues to conduct until it selfcommutates at the end of the half-cycle [3-7]. These dimmers produce audible noises in lamps due to the sharp turn-on waveform of current. Therefore, a large bulky filter-inductor is needed to be placed in series with the load to reduce the rate of change of current through the lamp in the forward phase-controlled dimmer. However, the price to be paid for this is the addition of bulky inductors, introducing both resistive and reactive power losses. An alternate method to avoid using the bulky inductor is reverse phase-controlled approaches [9, 10]. In the reverse phase-controlled dimmers, the triac is triggered into conduction immediately after the zero crossing of line voltage and then commutated off at some point during the ac half-cycle. The bulky filter-inductor can now be replaced by a less expensive capacitor in paralle connected with the power switches and the rate of change of current through the load after turn-off will be reduced [7, 9]. Forward and reverse phase-controlled dimmers chop the ac sine wave in such a way the output waveform is noticeably deformed and produce discontinuous current flow in the power distribution system. Therefore, they make undesirable harmonics. Harmonics can cause audible noise and overheating in the distribution wires [110]. Therefore, phase-controlled dimmers are unsuitable for AC LED lamps. To solve the harmonics problem, the PWM dimmer using only two active switches for AC LED lamp is proposed in this paper. Because the control of the proposed PWM dimmer is independent of the input voltage, it does not amplify the light flicker. The proposed PWM dimmer consists of only two active switches and an EMI filter. Because two active switches are composed with common source and gate, they can be easily driven by one of PWM signal. An EMI filter is for the elimination of high frequency component. So ot can be small and light. The volume of two active switches and an EMI filter is so small that the proposed dimmer can be used as the AC LED lamps dimmer instead of phase-controlled dimmer. From harmonics and voltage flicker point of view, a 100W prototype PWM dimmer has been implemented

978-1-4244-5393-1/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE

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and compared with phase-controlled dimmer. The proposed PWM dimmer for AC LED lamp can improve harmonics and less sensitive voltage flicker. The validity of the proposed strategy is verified by experiment in details. II. PHASE-CONTROLLED DIMMER Fig. 2 shows the basic schematic of the previous forward phase-controlled dimmer and typical waveforms. The traic Q1 is triggered into conduction at the desired phase angle ( ) and turned off at the zero crossing of the line voltage to transfer partial power from line to the lamp. The output voltage function (Vout) of the triggering phase angle is given by
Vout
(a)

sin 2 = VF + Vin (1 + ) 2

(1)

(b) Fig. 2. Typical phase-controlled dimmer. (a) Basic circuit. (b) Typical waveforms (a blue solid line: the line voltage, a red bold line: the output voltage).

where, Vout and Vin are rms value of the dimmers output voltage and the line voltage, respectively [11]. VF is threshold voltage of AC LED. The power factor (PF) can be expressed as
PF = (1

sin 2 + ) 2

(2)
(a)

Under the dimming condition, the output waveform is noticeably deformed and has undesirable harmonics. If the triggering phase angle closes to , the power factor decreases. As the lamp current is distorted by the dimmer, harmonic currents are produced. The worst case occurs when the traic is turned on in the maximum voltage of the sinusoidal waveform. In this case, the 3rd harmonic current is predominant. So a large bulky filter-inductor is needed to be placed in series with the load to reduce the rate of change of current through the lamp. The firing angle is determined by a combination of the magnitude of the line voltage and R1-C1 time delay as shown in Fig. 2. Under the same R1-C1 time delay, the magnitude of the line voltage has an effect on the triggering phase angle. When the magnitude of the line voltage is Vin, the triggering phase angle is as shown in Fig. 2(b). As the magnitude of the line voltage increases to Vin1, the triggering phase angle decreases to (1). The angle 1 is the result affected by the magnitude of the increased line voltage Vin1. Then, the rms value of the output voltage (a red bold line) is more increased as shown in Fig. 3(a). As the magnitude of the line voltage decreases to Vin2, the triggering phase angle increases to (+2). The angle 2 is the result affected by the magnitude of the decreased line voltage Vin2. Then, the rms value of the output voltage (a red bold line) is more decreased as shown in Fig. 3(b). In this way, the phase controlled-dimmer substantially amplifies the light flicker which is caused by the fluctuation of the line voltage [4].

(b) Fig. 3. Waveforms under the voltage flicker. (a) The increased line voltage (a blue dotted line: the original line voltage, a blue solid line: the increased line voltage, a red bold line: the output voltage). (b) The decreased line voltage (a blue dotted line: the original line voltage, a blue solid line: the decreased line voltage, a red bold line: the output voltage).

III. THE PROPOSED PWM DIMMER Fig. 4 shows the basic schematic of the proposed PWM dimmer and typical waveforms. The PWM dimmer consists of only two active switches and an EMI filter. An EMI filter is for the elimination of high frequency component. Because two active switches (MOSFET Q1, Q2) are comprised with common source and gate, and they are turn on and off simultaneously, they can be easily driven by one signal. The output voltage (Vout) of the PWM dimmer is given by

Vout = D Vin =

t on Vin T

(3)

where, Vout is rms value of the dimmers output voltage, Vin is rms value of the line voltage, and D is a duty ratio. VF is threshold voltage of AC LED.

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cycle. During the powering mode (ton), the switches Q1 and Q2 are turned on and the input current flows through the switches Q1 and Q2, as shown in Fig. 5(a). During this mode, the input power is transferred to the lamp. The blocking mode (toff) is complementary to the powering mode. During this mode, the switches Q1 and Q2 are turned off and the input current is blocked by the body

Fig. 5 shows two possible modes during one switching

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULT In order to verify the proposed dimmer for the AC LED lamp, the PWM dimmer with the EMI filter as shown in Fig. 7 is implemented and detail parameters are listed in Table I. Input filters (CX1, CX2, and LF1) are adopted to the PWM dimmer to filter out high frequency current. The universal power analyzer (WT3000) was used to measure the harmonics in the input current.
TABLE I SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS AND PARAMETERS Item Value/Unit VAC 220 V / 60 HZ PO 100 W Fsw 98 kHz QL, Q2 12NM50 LF1 40 mH 330 nF CX1 220 nF CX2 1 nF CY1, CY2 TABLE II HARMONICS ANALYSIS Phase-controlled PWM dimmer [%] dimmer [%] 100 100 81.6 47.3

(a)

Order [n] I1 I3 I5 I7 I9 I11

53.1
26.5 16.2 17.4

2.9
6.9 1 1.1

(b) Fig. 4. Proposed PWM dimmer. (a) Basic circuit. (b) Typical waveforms (a blue solid line: the line voltage, a red bold line: the output voltage, a red dotted line: the outputs average voltage).

[1A log Scale]

Harmonic current

[1-100]

(a) (a)

[1A log Scale]

Harmonic current

[1-100]

(b) Fig. 5. Operation mode of the proposed PWM dimmer. (a) Powering mode. (b) Blocking mode.

(b) Fig. 6. Measured the harmonics in the input current. (a) Phasecontrolled dimmer at 50 W. (b) Proposed PWM dimmer at 50W.

diode of the switches Q1 and Q2, as shown in Fig. 5(b). Therefore, the proposed PWM dimmer does not amplify the light flicker because its control is independent of the input voltage.

Under the same input voltage of 220 V and output voltage of 195 V, comparison results of harmonic components in the input current between the phasecontrolled dimmer and the proposed PWM dimmer are shown in Fig. 6 and Table II, Fig. 8 and Fig. 9 show

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typical waveforms of the phase-controlled dimmer and the proposed PWM dimmer under the above condition. The test results indicate that the THD of phase-controlled dimmer is 108% and 3rd harmonic current is 81.6%. The THD of the proposed PWM dimmer, on the other hand, is significantly reduced as 48% and 3rd harmonic current is also decreased as 47%. Fig. 8(a) shows typical waveforms of the phasecontrolled dimmer at firing-angle of 90. The output voltage is 195 V and it equals to the result of equation (1). Fig. 8(b) shows typical waveforms of the phasecontrolled dimmer under the voltage flicker with lower voltage of 200 Vac, and its output voltage is 165 V. The voltage flicker affects on the R-C gate circuit of triac dimmer and it delays firing-angle. Therefore, a decrease in the output voltage is bigger than the input voltage. In case of voltage flicker with higher voltage of 240 Vac, typical waveforms of the phase-controlled dimmer are represented in Fig. 8(c), and its output voltage is 216V. The voltage flicker also affects on the R-C gate circuit of traic dimmer and it advances firing-angle ahead. Namely, an increase in the output voltage is bigger than the input voltage. In this case, the light flicker is amplified by the voltage flicker in the phase-controlled dimmer. On the other hand, Fig. 9(a) shows typical waveforms for applying the proposed PWM dimmer with duty ratio of 0.5. The output voltage is 195 V and it equals to the result of equation (3). Fig. 9(b) is expanded waveform of Fig. 9(a). The switcing freqency is 98 kHz and the input power is transferred to the lamp during the powering mode (ton). Fig. 9(c) shows typical waveforms of the PWM dimmer under the voltage flicker with lower voltage of 200 Vac, and its output voltage is 180 V. Fig. 9(d) shows typical waveforms of the PWM dimmer under the voltage flicker with higher voltage of 240 Vac. The output voltage is 205 V. Because the duty ratio is independent of the input voltage, the PWM dimmer does not amplify the light flicker for the voltage flicker. Fig. 10 shows photographs of the phase-controlled and the PWM dimmer. Because the size of the PWM dimmer is similar to that of phase-controlled dimmer, instead of the previous phase-controlled dimmer, the PWM dimmer can be used for the residential wall dimmer models. Fig.11 show dimming range of the proposed PWM dimmer of 10W AC LED lamp. The characteristic of output luminance is very linear. Therefore, the proposed PWM dimmer are suitable for AC LED lamps.

V ac [200V/div] [200V/div] [1A/div] Vo Iac

220V ac

[5ms/div]

(a)
V ac [200V/div] [200V/div] [1A/div] Vo Iac 200V ac

[5ms/div]

(b)
V ac [200V/div] [200V/div] [1A/div] Vo Iac 240V ac

[5ms/div]

(c) Fig. 8. Waveforms of the phase-controlled dimmer with the bulky inductor. (a) Typical waveforms. (b) Under the voltage flicker with lower voltage of 200 Vac. (c) Under the voltage flicker with higher voltage of 240 Vac.
V ac [200V/div] [200V/div] [1A/div] Vo Iac 220V ac

[5ms/div]

(a)
V ac [200V/div] [200V/div] [1A/div] Vo 220V ac

Iac

[5us/div]

(b) Fig. 7. Proposed PWM dimmer with the EMI filter.

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V ac [200V/div] [200V/div] [1A/div] Vo Iac

200V ac

[5ms/div]

(c)
V ac [200V/div] [200V/div] [1A/div] Vo Iac 240V ac

Fig. 11. Dimming range of the proposed PWM dimmer.

V. CONCLUSION This paper presents a novel dimmer using only two active switches for AC LED lamps. Compared with the previous phase-controlled dimmer, the proposed PWM dimmer can generate correct sine-wave and reduce 3rd harmonic current. Moreover, it is controlled by the input voltage independently and does not amplify the light flicker during dimming. Therefore, the proposed novel dimmer can be used in various AC LED Lamps. Experimental results showed that instead of the previous phase-controlled dimmer. Finally, the proposed PWM dimmer can be used for the residential and commercial lighting dimmer models. REFERENCES
[1] Seoul semiconductor co.ltd., April 2010. [Online], http://www.acriche.com/en/product/prd/acriche.asp [2] J. Smith, J. Speakes, and M. H. Rashid, "An overview of the modern light dimmer: design, operation, and application," IEEE Power Symposium, Proceedings of the 37th Annual North American, Oct. 2005, pp. 299-303. [3] C. S. Wang, "Flicker-insensitive light dimmer for incandescent lamps" IEEE Trans. Indus. Elec., vol. 55, no. 2, pp. 767-772, Feb. 2008. [4] S. Datta, "Power pollution caused by lighting control system," in Rec. IEEE IAS Annu. Meeting, 1991, pp. 18421852. [5] C. S. Wang and M. J. Devaney, "Incandescent lamp flicker mitigation and measurement," IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas., vol. 53, no. 4, pp. 1028-1034, Aug. 2004. [6] M. H. Rashid, "Power Electronics: Circuits, Devices, and Applications," Third edition. Peason Education, pp. 309, 2004. [7] S. Datta, "Power pollution caused by lighting control system," in Conf. Rec. IEEE IAS Annu. Meeting, 1991, vol. 3, pp. 1842-1852. [8] C. F. Christiansen and M. Benedetti, "Power FET controlled dimmer for incandescent lamps," IEEE Trans. Industry Appl., vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 323-327, May/June 1983. [9] R. M. Burkhart and D. L. Ostrodka, "Reverse phasecontrolled dimmer for incandesent lighting," IEEE Trans. Indus. Appl., vol. IA-15, no. 5, pp. 579-581, Sept./Oct. 1979. [10] Power Line Harmonic Problems Causes and Cures, Dranets Technologies, December 1994. [11] J. Hua, Low voltage dimming system, in Conf. Rec. IEEE IAS Annu. Meeting, 1999, vol. 3, pp. 1700-1704.

[5ms/div]

(d) Fig. 9. Waveforms of the proposed PWM dimmer with the EMI filter. (a) Typical waveforms. (b) Expanded waveforms. (c) Under the voltage flicker with lower voltage of 200 Vac. (d) Under the voltage flicker with higher voltage of 240Vac.

(a)

(b)

(c) Fig. 10. Photographs of the phase-controlled and PWM dimmer. (a) The phase-controlled dimmer. (b) The PWM dimmer. (c) The proposed front image of finished product

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