2015 IEEE International Conference on Technological Advancements in Power & Energy
Bridgeless Flyback Converter for Low Power
Lighting Application
Saranya P S
Dept. of Electrical & Electronics
Amrita School of Engineering
Amritapuri, Kollam, INDIA
saranyaprasannan@gmail.com
Abstract- Lighting system management and optimization have
turned into the most important research trend in lighting
electronics. Solar LED lighting scheme is a maj or kind of light
sources in the coming decades because of the efficiency concerns
and renewable energy utilization. Conventional LED driving
circuit is the combination of diode bridge rectifier and input PFC
stage. Diode bridge rectifier at the front end of driving circuit
will cause reduced conversion efficiency and power factor. This
paper deals with reliable lighting scheme which can be supplied
from both solar panel and conventional supply. A battery storage
unit is also used to store the energy from PV panel and it also
reduces the peak loading while it charging from conventional
supply. The dc supply from grid connection is obtained by using
bridgeless flyback converter which has inherent power factor
correction capability. A MATLAB/Simulink model of proposed
scheme is developed for validating the theoretical explanation
and the relevant results are also discussed.
keywords- Bidirectional flyback converter, LED, Battery
I. INTRODUCTION
Light emlttmg diodes (LEDs) are attracting public
attention for general lighting due to its benefits such as
improved color rendering, efficiency and operating
temperature range. Together with the advance of LED devices,
the development of driving circuit is also important to
improve the performance and to reduce the manufacturing cost
of LED lighting. The driving circuit is conventional DC-DC
converters in conjunction with LEDs and input diode bridge
rectifiers [1]-[6] so it causes high conduction losses thereby
reduce the conversion efficiency. New approaches without
bridge rectifier are again invented with improved power factor
[7]-[9]. This paper deals with a bridgeless flyback converter
for LED street lighting, when it connected from grid side. PY
power generation has grown rapidly in recent years by the
encouragement of local governments and utility companies.
Solar street lighting scheme with LEDs are a viable option to
utilize the renewable energy and same time it reduce the peak
power loading because the public Iightings are switched at the
peak time thus researches have been carried out in these fields
to make the public lighting scheme more efficient and cost
effective. The proposed lighting scheme can be connected
from both renewable and AC grid through a battery storage
unit. So the automatic interconnection of battery to PY and
grid side will be controlled based on the SOC level and PY
availability. If solar energy is available, battery is charged
978-1-4799-8280-6/15/$3l.00 ©2015 IEEE
Lekshmi R. Chandran
Dept. of Electrical & Electronics
Amrita School of Engineering
Amritapuri, Kollam, INDIA
lekshmichandran@am.amrita.edu
from PY system and when it is unavailable, battery will be
charged from AC grid through bridgeless fly back converter in
off peak time thus it reduce the peak power loading. Fig l
shows the block diagram representation of the proposed
lighting scheme.
ACGrid
... _--------
, ,
:-
,
------------,
,
PVplDel
Fig.l Block diagram of proposed lighting scheme.
II.BIDIRECTIONAL FLYBACK CONVERTER
Many converter topologies have been developed for the
lighting systems. The bridgeless flyback topology which is
described in this paper is derived from conventional DC-DC
converter, this topology is an integration of two flyback
converters which working in discontinuous conduction mode.
Then unidirectional switches are replaced with bidirectional
ones and it need a tertiary winding in order to make it as a
bridgeless flyback AC-DC converter [10]-[12]. With proper
switching pattern this single topology will work as rectifier as
well as inverter. Fig 2 show the bidirectional fly back converter
which can directly connected from AC supply. Upper and
lower half of secondary will be operated for each polarity of
input voltage. This converter can be used as a rectifier circuit
for the proposed lighting scheme. The steady state operation of
bridgeless bidirectional flyback converter can be explained
with two modes of operation, ie, charging and discharging
operation and it will take two paths for each polarity of input
voltage. In the rectification operation switches M3 and M4 have
no effect. It operated as diodes only. The significance of these
switches comes only in the inverting operation. The future
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2015 IEEE International Conference on Technological Advancements in Power & Energy

development of the work aims to utilize the bidirectional B) For negative half cycle of input voltage.
property of this single topology.
As shown in Fig. 2, there is symmetry in the circuit with
respect to the input voltage. Thus in the charging mode switch
load
M, is turned on and switch M2 is turned off The secondary
side will be open circuited because Mo is turned off. Hence no
current will pass through the secondary side. Magnetizing
inductance of the transformer is increased in negative polarity.
At the discharging moment switch M2 is turned off and switch
Mo is turned on. Magnetizing inductance is discharged
through the lower half of the secondary circuit. Thus it
forward biases the internal diode D3. Fig. 4(a) and (b) shows
the charging and discharging mode for negative polarity.

Fig. 2 Bridgeless bidirectional flyback converter.

c
A) For positive half cycle of input voltage.
When input voltage is having positive polarity, switch M2
will be turned on and M, needs to be turned off. Input voltage
of Vac is applied to the primary side of the flyback transformer.

!
v••
The magnetizing inductance of the transformer begins to
charge, whereas at secondary sides switches M3, M4 and Mo are
I••
turned off. Thus no current flows through the secondary
winding. To maintain a constant output voltage the capacitor
supplies the load. For the next instant the switch M2 turned off, Fig. 4(a) Charging operation for negative polarity
the magnetizing inductor discharges through the secondary side
and forward biases the internal diode D4. The diode D3 become
I +
reverse biased, so the discharge will be completed through c .., Vdc
10 •

upper half of the secondary and load. Once the magnetizing

inductor of the transformer is fully demagnetized, internal
diode D4 become reverse biased and no current flows through
the fly back transformer. Fig. 3(a) and (b) shows the charging
and discharging operation for positive polarity of input voltage.
D.

Fig. 4(b) Discharging operation for negative polarity.

Y••
In order to obtain this rectification operation, the following
switching strategies need to be followed. There is no need to
switch M3 and M4 for AC-DC conversion stage, these switches
are turned off throughout the rectification operation.

Fig. 3(a) Charging operation for positive polarity

TABLE I
Switching pattern for rectification of flyback converter

c J,'0 Yo.
Status Modes M, Mz M3 M4 Ms

Charging 0 1 0 0 0
Vg>O

Discharging 0 0 0 0 I
Y••

Charging I 0 0 0 0
Vg<O

Discharging 0 0 0 0 I

Fig. 3(b) Discharging operation for positive polarity

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2015 IEEE International Conference on Technological Advancements in Power & Energy
III. PV AND BATTERY MODELING
1. PV Modeling
A PV cell is basically a semiconductor diode whose
pn junction is exposed to light. Several PV cells are
connected in series configuration to form a PV module. The
equivalent circuitry of a PV module is shown in Fig. 5, in
which the simplest model can be represented by a current
source in anti parallel with a diode and the non idealities are
represented by the insertion of the resistances Rs (series
resistance) and Rsh (parallel resistance). Vpv and Ipv is the
terminal voltage and current of PV panel.
.As I pv
ID +
Vp"
Fig.S One diode Model of PY panel
(1)
[ph *Rsh
-
IPV - (2)
Rsh +Rsh
2. Battery Modeling
Electrochemical batteries are of great importance in many
electrical systems because the chemical energy stored inside
them can be converted into electrical energy and delivered to
electrical systems, whenever energy is needed. Out of many
storage devices the Li-ion battery holds a good energy
density. While going with its modeling there are several
parameters associated like internal resistance, discharge type,
discharge mode etc. The research develops detailed and
equivalent Li-ion battery models to characterize effective
charge and discharge hysteresis property. The State of
Charge (SOC) level is calculated by current data
t
SOC% =SOCo� I
t i(t)dt
(3)
Qn.h 0 PV power. Second controller is for the switching of
Qn and SOCo indicate the nominal capacIties of the
battery and the initial SOc. For the convenience of
calculation of voltage and SOC yet with reasonable accuracy,
the following is assumed: the constant internal impedance in
charge/discharge states, effects from temperature, no self­
discharge, and no memory effect.
978-1-4799-8280-6/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
IV.OPERATION AND CONTROL OF THE LIGHTING SCHEME
I. Modes of Operations
In this, LED light is connected to battery and is
supplied from either PV panel or from the normal AC supply.
The lighting scheme consists of three operating states
depending on the level of battery charge and PV availability.
Fig. 6 shows the schematic of the street lighting scheme.
Bridgeles,
flyback J:J-I ryol.J
r L.J L::.
�
5, 54
.
converter
AC,upply
B
Fig.6 Schematic representation of interconnected lighting scheme.
When solar energy is available during day time, battery
starts charging and stores this energy thus increasing the SOC
level. Once it reaches a maximum level then PV is
disconnected from battery. If PV is not available, then battery
is charged from AC grid to a maximum level only in the off
peak time. Once it is charged to maximum SOC level (say
80%) then the whole system is in the floating stage.
The lighting scheme has three modes of operation
1. Mode 1: Battery is charged from PV panel. S3 is
ON and Sl, S2 are OFF.
2. Mode 2: battery is fully charged, PV is
disconnected- SJ, S2 and S3 are OFF
3. Mode 3: Battery charged from grid supply- SI,S2
are ON and S3 is OFF
4. Mode 4: Battery is fully charged, system in a
floating stage- SJ, S2 and S3 are OFF
Sl, S2, S3 and S4 are controllable switches. Switch S4 will be
turned on only in the night time with proper clock circuit.
II. Control Strategy
The lighting scheme needs two control strategies, one
controller for the switching of SJ, S2, S3 and S4. It can be
realized using logic circuit which is controlled by SOC and
bridgeless flyback converter.
The switching strategy developed for switches S), S2 and
S3 efficiently interchanges the operating states of the street
lighting system. With this scheme, renewable energy
integration and complete availability of street lighting can be
achieved. Fig. 7 shows the flow chart of control strategy for
battery management and interconnection.
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2015 IEEE International Conference on Technological Advancements in Power & Energy

40' �----'----'--- -'--�" '�-- '----'----'---- '

Input voltag e

�
11
� -100

-200

-300

40'�--�O .�
O I --����--�'- --�
O .OK
. ---rl�-' Orl.007--�O . '
nma{S)

tEE=. � [- [-j
Fig.S Input AC supply.

PV Output voltage
PVconnect
ACsupp� ACsupply 30
disconnect connect to disconnect
to battery from � 20 ;= � =

': E · t· ·+· i·· · · !· · · t· R

fro m battery

Fig.7 Flow chart of control scheme ! .100 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08
Output current
V. SIMULATION RESULTS

A MATLAB/Simulink model bridgeless flyback

converter has been developed for validating bidirectional
power flow capability and the proposed lighting scheme has
also been developed in MATLAB/Simulink, in which the
power converter operated as rectifier only. The design of
power topology and other components are based on the limelS)
Fig.9 Output voltage and current.
output power requirement of 40W and 24V. The simulation
parameters are shown in table II. The results are also
presented in this section. Inverting operation is done with an input DC voltage of
30V and an alternating voltage of 230V is obtained as the
A. Bidirectional property of flyback converter. output. the input and output voltage for an inverting
The rectification operation of bridgeless flyback converter operation is shown in Fig. l O.
is simulated with an input voltage of 230V and 31 .-____-.______ _ T
_ tv
n p u
1� _ g�e
_ l_ ta
_ o ____
-.
______
.- -,

corresponding output voltage is 24Y. Fig. 8 shows the input

voltage from the grid connected system. From Fig. 9 it is
----------- ' ----------- : ----------- 1 ----------- 1 "----------

clear that the proposed topology can be operated as rectifier.

Rectifier circuit converts it to a dc voltage of 24V and ___________ l ___________ l ___________ . ___________ ____________
produces an output current of l . 6A as designed. The
inverting operation of flyback converter has also been done 29 oL-----�O�.O
�2�--�O�OL4�--� O�.O ���----�
� · 6�--�O�.O O.1
.
in order to validate the bidirectional property of the power r g�e
4 00 .- -----.-------T°�U=tP�u=t�v�o=lta �--_ -- ----_
. ,
topology.
200
Table II
�
tmu atlOn parameters g 0

Parameters Values
�
-200

LIl( flyback transformer) 5.5Mh

0.04
Filter capacitor ,Cr 2251lF
Fig. 10 Input and output volyage for inverting operation

Fs 20 kHz

turns ratio, Nt: N2: N3 14: I: I

B. Battery operation when supplied from PV and AC grid

AC voltage(RMS) 230 V The solar ligthing scheme with battery energy storage
system which can also supply from conventional supply is
Load resistance 14.4 n
developed in MATLAB. The performance analysis can be
PV panel rating 250W, 43V(Voc) done in all the three modes of operation. When PV is
Battery voltage 24V
available, the battery need to be charged from solar and when
PV is not available it should be charged from conventional
DC olp voltage 24V supply. When SOC level is below 80%, switch S3 will be

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2015 IEEE International Conference on Technological Advancements in Power & Energy

turned on. Once it reaches 80% it will be turned off and PV Load voltage
gets disconnected from battery. Fig. l l shows corresponding
switching strategy.

::�-1
soc

Load current

SI

:[1--:--" --.--'4
- 1 ..
_
. : . .......... : ...... . ...... . ....�

s, Time(s)
Fig 13. Load voltage and current.

When PV is not available, battery needs to be charged

:l ii 1
from the grid during the off-peak time. In this condition,

, ·
flyback converter will act as rectifier circuit. So the switches
Sl and S2 will be turned on, in order to connect the grid side to
' ,
a �5 1 1.5 2 25 3 l5 battery. Once it reaches an SOC level of 80%, all the switches
Time (5) need to be turned off. Switching pulses for this mode of
operation is shown in Fig.14.
Fig. 1 1 Switching strategy of lighting scheme

::b::f: ! I i, i B
soc
As battery SOC increases from 40% to 80%, voltage
starts increasing to a maximum value of 27V. Current during
this period is negative indicating charging mode. Once SOC
d. 2 '-----'--------'------------�----'--------
-'- - ------
--'-- --'
reaches 80% battery voltage becomes constant and current

:l , , '1
becomes zero. From t=3.25s to 3.45s a resistive load 150 is

m J.
connected. This is supplied by the battery which reduces the
SOC level to 60%. Rated current of 1. 6A is supplied to the
,
load. Fig.12 shows the battery performance when it supplies

:l i i I ,11
from PV module.

t I I I 1 i i
soc

j
100
,
� so mu

:1 I ! S'I , I I
W 0 L---�---- �--��--�----�----�--�
0 o.s l.S 2.S 3.S
Battery Voltage

:f i I Iii i g
o 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
TinIe( s)
Fig. 14 SOC level and switching pattern

o O.S 1.S 2.S 3.S

Imfmfmlmfmfmt
Battery Current Voltage across flyback converter

o O.S 1 1.S 2 2.S 3 3.S

TImels}
Fig. 12 Battery SOC, Voltage and Current 0.5 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5

Current

i .]l-li-i!-" j
Load is switched only for a small period of 3.25 to 3.45s.
In this period, 40W LED lamp draws a current of 1. 6A.
Voltage across the lamp is 24V, which is same as that of
designed value and is shown in Fig.13.
o 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Timels}

Fig. 15 Output voltage and current of tlyback rectifier

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2015 IEEE International Conference on Technological Advancements in Power & Energy

Flyback converter will supply for the battery and voltage and REFERENCE
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The presence of battery energy storage system helps in
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increasing the system reliability and also reduces peak
loading. Advantages of this scheme will encourage solar
street lighting. Future developments involve the
implementation of an efficient bidirectional controller for
fly back converter. Development of bidirectional controller
will help to supply the extra PV power to the grid through the
same fly back converter. Thus the converter will act as
rectifier for charging battery and as grid tie inverter for PV
integration. Implementation of this scheme for general
lighting will reduce the dependency on conventional power
and contribute towards green energy. Reliable and long life
makes this scheme effective in fulfilling our present and
future lighting requirements in a smarter way.

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