Control of a high‐voltage bidirectional dc–dc flyback converter for driving DEAs

Abstract

This study presents modelling and control of a high-voltage ratio flyback converter for driving capacitive loads including smart material dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs). These actuators find various applications including artificial muscles, optical devices, smart skin, and acoustics but require high actuation voltages. To this end, a high-voltage bidirectional flyback converter for driving a capacitive load is studied in terms of modelling and control and applied to a DEA. The state-space model of the converter is obtained for the capacitor charge and discharge modes when the converter operates in the continuous conduction mode and used to obtain a load voltage controller using the feedback linearisation method. The converter can be used to regenerate the capacitor charge into the dc source. The proposed hardware and control strategy was built and validated by driving DEA capacitive loads operating at high voltages around 4 kV. The experimental results are presented which validate the performance of the proposed converter and its control strategy.