Bidirectional buck-boost converter with variable output voltage

An increasing number of manufacturing processes rely on ultra-high speed and accuracy of machines. Piezoceramic actuators are being utilized as parts of such machines. So far, only linear and switched-capacitor power supplies have been used for driving piezoceramic actuators in such applications. This paper proposes a switch-mode power supply to reduce cost and increase system efficiency. In the proposed design, the traditional PWM buck-boost topology is modified to accommodate bidirectional operation, and dynamic compensation is applied between the reference and the output to ensure good frequency response and low steady-state error of the variable output voltage. The converter operation is verified by Saber simulations.