Single-stage high-power-factor electronic ballast with complex frequency modulation for hid lamps

A single-stage, complex frequency-modulated (CFM), high-frequency-driven electronic ballast for high-intensity-discharging (HID) lamps is proposed. The presented ballast combines a power-factor-correction (PFC) converter with a half-bridge series-resonant parallel-loaded inverter as well as a CFM controller. The switching frequency of the integrated inverter is non-periodically modulated by the CFM signal that integrates DC-bus voltage ripples with an additional highfrequency sine-wave signal. Compared with constant-frequency and frequency-modulated (FM) control, the presented ballast offers a widely continuous power spectrum of lamp current with decreased amplitude in order to effectively expand the lamp power as well as reducing sideband frequencies and allowing for a much lower energy level of the eigen frequency that supplies the lamp. Because of its CFM operation, no acoustic resonance occurs; additionally, the obtained results include a 13 dBm reduction of power spectrum at the centre switching frequency compared with FM control, and a 22 dBm reduction compared with constant-frequency control. The ballast offers high power factor (0.99), high efficiency (90%), cost-effectiveness and a simple, easy-to-implement controller. A prototype ballast utilising the CFM control method with 110 V utility-line input voltage has been built, and experimental results were carried out on three different brands of 70 W metal-halide-type HID lamps.