POWER REGULATOR HAVING CURRENT AND VOLTAGE MODES

摘要

A power supply is configured to automatically and rapidly switch from a voltage maintaining mode to a current limiting mode (at times that are unpredictable from a point of view of the power supply) when supplying replenishing current to a combination of a power insulated gate switching device and power capacitor that drive relatively large surges of pulsed power through a load such as a laser emitter of a Time of Flight (TOF) determining system. The current limiting mode is automatically activated by the start of each train of large surges of pulsed power and it replenishes charge to the power capacitor on a time averaged basis such that the capacitor develops a temperature appropriate voltage for providing the time averaged current to the power insulated gate switching device and its load and causing the load (e.g., laser) to output a desired amount of output power. The current limiting mode automatically stops when the time averaged current is detected to drop below a threshold and then the voltage maintaining mode automatically begins. The voltage maintaining mode maintains a stored voltage across the capacitor slightly greater than a maximum voltage needed to drive the load (e.g., laser emitter) to the desired magnitude of output power (e.g., output luminance).

主权项

1. A method of supplying power to a load that episodically becomes connected to receive current from a power supply, the method comprising:
automatically detecting if the load is drawing on a time averaged basis, more than a predetermined first amount of average current, and if not, responsively causing a charge storage device to be charged to a predetermined first voltage using a voltage controlled mode of a multi-mode regulated power supply, where the load becomes connected to the charge storage device at substantially a same time that the load becomes episodically connected to receive current from the multi-mode regulated power supply; in response to detecting that the load is on the time averaged basis drawing more than the predetermined first amount of average current, automatically switching the multi-mode regulated power supply to a current regulating mode to thereby limit the amount of average current received by the load to a second amount of average current greater than the first amount of average current; and in response to detecting that the load is no longer on the time averaged basis drawing more than the predetermined first amount of average current, automatically switching the multi-mode regulated power supply to the voltage controlled mode to thereby cause the charge storage device to again be charged to the predetermined first voltage.