Envelope following method for the transient analysis of electrical circuits

Abstract

An envelope following method (EFM) that allows efficient transient simulations of electrical circuits is here presented. Its mathematical and electrical bases are considered and the influence of some general properties, such as stability and truncation error of integration methods employed by EFM, are studied. Furthermore, we present a new state variable prediction algorithm that improves previously reported ones, since it better adapts to fast dynamics of the solution. A set of power switching circuits is employed as a benchmark and numerical results of our algorithm are compared to those of conventional integration and of previous EFM versions. Remarkable results are obtained in the electrothermal simulation of power converters where the efficiency gain rises up to some magnitude orders with respect to conventional integration.