Summary
This paper presents new ideas and insights towards a novel optimal control approach for power electronic converters. The so‐called stabilizing or Lyapunov‐based control paradigm is adopted, which is well known in the area of energy‐based control of power electronic converters, in which the control law takes a nonlinear state‐feedback form parameterized by a positive scalar λ. The first contribution is the extension to an optimal Lyapunov‐based control paradigm involving the specification of the optimal value for the parameter λ in a typical optimal control setting. The second contribution is the extension to more flexible optimal switching‐gain control laws, where the optimal switching surfaces are parameterized by a number of positive scalars λj. Systematic derivation of gradient information to apply gradient‐descent algorithms is provided. The proposed techniques are numerically evaluated using the exact switched model of a DC–DC boost converter. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.