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High Power Step-Up Converter for Car Subwoofers

This paper presents an original DC/DC step-up converter topology for high power car audio applications with battery supply. A prototype was realized and tested for the power supply of a TANDEM subwoofer box. Audio signals are characterized by high dynamic variations, thus they can be amplified only relying on power supplies with high dynamic capabilities and low output ripple. The latter constraint can be achieved only using closed-loop switch-mode DC/DC converters at high switching frequency. So doing converter efficiency is reduced, and EMC problems arise. In summary power supply efficiency and supply voltage quality are key features of the converter design. In this paper the above mentioned issued were tackled relying on an open loop topology. The original solution is the adoption of a three-phase transformer within a full-bridge converter topology. The proposed architecture will be referred to as 3boost power supply. Experimental results confirm that the 3boost power supply topology allows to achieve higher efficiency, a lower ripple factor, and a unitary transformer utilization factor. It turns out that it is an efficient power supply for a car audio subwoofer system, specifically for a digital output stage, where the quality of the supply level is a key element. The proposed architecture is patent pending.

Authors: Bellini, Alberto; Cavatorta, Matteo; Franceschini, Giovanni; Lorenzani, Emilio; Violi, Francesco
Affiliations: University of Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze, Parma, ITALY ; ASK Industries, Reggio Emilia, ITALY(See document for exact affiliation information.)
AES Convention:117 (October 2004) Paper Number:6308 Import into BibTeX
Subject:Automotive Audio

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