PLL-based enhanced control of boost PFC converter for smart farming lighting application

Controlled environment farming has become an attractive solution to increase the food production with limited use of resources. LED lights are often used in this type of farming to increase plant yield. LED lights are dc load, whereas the grid provides ac power. This necessitates the use of power factor correction (PFC) converter as an interface between the grid and the lights. This paper proposes an innovative control method for the boost PFC converter, where an advanced phase-locked loop scheme is developed that can eliminate measurement dc offset and provide harmonic robust estimation of the grid voltage fundamental component. The applied nonlinear control uses the existing two-loop control architecture. Based on a baseline PI controller, a nonlinear function is added to make the controller react faster when it is far from the reference and vice-versa. Comprehensive simulation studies are conducted to assess the performance of the proposed method under various challenging test scenarios. Compared to the baseline method, the proposed technique achieved reduction in total harmonic distortion depending on the test cases, which makes the technique a suitable candidate for improving the operational efficiency and, consequently, the running cost of a smart farming lighting system on an industrial scale. Results show the effectiveness of the proposed method over the conventional counterpart.