TEC for laser diode

What I described above (snipped) is average current mode control -- you can do the same thing with peak mode control, in which case the inner loop uses a comparator and flip-flop. UC3842 is a classic example.

(You could further put an average current sensing loop around that, I suppose, but I don't know why.)

The main downside to peak-mode control is, it only works well in DCM (inductor current goes to zero each cycle), which costs ripple and noisiness. You can run at higher duty cycles (over 50%, inductor current not returning to zero), but you have to compensate for it, otherwise the loop goes unstable[1]. They call it "slope compensation", which just adds some of the oscillator slope with the current slope, which gets you a hybrid between the lone-pulse-width-modulator case and pure current mode operation.

[1] The loop exhibits a zero in the right half plane at 1/2 F_sw, or something like that, so as power output is turned up, it starts oscillating at half the operating frequency. As it grows, the small-signal approximation stops being valid, and the pulse widths saturate, resulting in a chaotic system. In fact, it exhibits a chaotic map identical to the Logistic Function.

Time domain intuition shows that, if inductor current doesn't discharge to zero by the time the oscillator kicks the switch back on, the amount of time until it reaches peak becomes a free variable -- current is still limited in magnitude, but now the pulse widths can see-saw from one pulse to the next, with the average pulse width held in place by the setpoint. At low power, it operates smoothly, but as you turn it up, it starts alternating, short pulse, long pulse; then it bifurcates again: very short, medium long, medium short, very long; and so on. Over most of the range, it hisses because it's jumping between so many pulse widths that it's approximately random.

Tim

--
Seven Transistor Labs 
Electrical Engineering Consultation 
Website: http://seventransistorlabs.com
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Tim Williams
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ith thermal control with a PI loop, and no long thermal paths) I picture th e gain as like the open loop response of an opamp. (Maybe that's wrong?) S o is the DC gain of the fast/inner loop always less than the slower/outer? And I can then add them together with 'no worries'?

OK Thanks, two Tim's and Phil. You've at least identified my problem. I w as thinking of two side by side loops and not one inside the other. (I kno w you were both saying inner and outer loops.. but that's not what I 'heard '.) I'll have to draw some pictures tonight and see if I can make sense of it . OK, no integrator on the inside loop because any offset error will be clean ed up by the outer loop.

Then the outer loop see's the reference (temperature), defines an error sig nal, processes that(PI), and then sends this control 'information' onto the inner loop. The inner loop defines it's own error signal (based on temperature measurem ent and information from the outer loop.) Gains it up, and tells the plant (TEC) to get there asap. What exactly the 'information' is, is a bit foggy . It's gotta look like a reference (temperature) for the inner loop. You know that does sound fairly straight forward.

George H.

Reply to
George Herold

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