Evaluation of an improved input current shaper used as power factor corrector in electronic ballast

In this paper the evaluation of an improved input current shaper used as a single-stage power factor correction (PFC) in electronic ballast is presented. The proposed topology uses two voltage sources connected in series to feed the inverter which is ballasting the lamp, one of them consists of the rectified line voltage and the other is a buck-boost converter operating in DCM (discontinuous conduction mode). In this way, the buck-boost converter process uses a lower energy than the nominal power of the lamp. The proposed topology presents single stage, high-power-factor, low current crest factor in the lamp, with high efficiency.