METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ELECTRONIC POWER CONTROL

摘要

The method and apparatus of the invention involve electronic power control by varying the amplitude of an electrical power supply voltage or current. A power controller is disclosed for controlling an AC input voltage to a load, the input voltage having one or more phases. The controller circuit has four independently controllable switches (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4) and at least one inductor (L1), one such circuit for each input line to be regulated, the switches and inductor(s) of the circuit arranged in a conventional power regulator topology, whereby a selected regulator topology may be implemented, depending upon the position of the inductor(s) with respect to the input voltage. The controller has logic control with a two output polarity detector (160) in parallel with the input voltage, and a duty cycle modulator with two outputs; each of the outputs of the polarity detector and of duty modulator being inverted with respect to one another. Each switch is separately controlled and modulated by the logic control so that some combination of one or more of the switches is always electrically conducting.