2014 13th International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications
Transient Characteristics of DC-DC Converter with PID Parameters Selection and
Neural Network Control
Hidenori Maruta∗ , Daiki Mitsutake∗ , Fujio Kurokawa∗
∗ Graduate School of Engineering
Nagasaki University
1-14, Bunkyo-machi, Nagasaki, Japan
Abstract—This paper presents a neural network based PID
parameter selection control to improve the transient response of
dc-dc converters. In the conventional PID control, parameters
of it such as proportional, integral, and differential coefcients
are selected as xed parameters to regulate both transient and
steady-state characteristics simultaneously as much as possible.
The parameter setting of PID control is not optimal for the
improvement of transient-state characteristics since the setting
needs to satisfy stable steady-state characteristics. Therefore,
the parameter selection for different states is widely applicable
from the point of view of the improvement of transient
response. In this study, we present a novel parameter selection
method for PID control based on the load change prediction
of neural network to improve the transient response of dc-dc
converter. In the presented method, suitable PID parameters
are selected with neural network. This neural network is
trained to predict the load change from the output voltage of
dc-dc converter in advance. From the predicted result of neural
network, PID parameters are changed to optimal ones after the
load change occurs. Additionally, the reference modication
with another neural network, which is trained to modify the
reference value of PID control, is also adopted simultaneously
to obtain more effective improvement of transient response.
From evaluation results, we conrm that our presented method
contributes to obtain an effective improvement of the transient
response compared to the conventional PID control.
Keywords-dc–dc converter, PID control, neural network
I. I NTRODUCTION
DC-DC converters are used in a wide range of area
including personal computers, electric vehicles, data centers,
and so forth. Therefore, they can contribute the energy
management system for stable power supply and low power
consumption in a area of energy application. Those con-
verters need a high efcient and reliable control method
to satisfy the requirement of low energy consumption and
stability against various load change conditions. For such
purposes, a digital control for dc-dc converter is widely used
since it can realize a simple design and easy implementation.
Most popular way to control dc-dc converters is the
PID control method, which is designed to control both in
transient-state and steady-state of dc-dc converter simulta-
neously. Therefore, the PID control can be improved more
effective one to transient response with some additional
methods. The PID parameter selection or auto-tuning (e.g.
[1]) is one of the most successive way to improve the PID
control, which tunes the PID parameters such as such as
978-1-4799-7415-3/14 $31.00 © 2014 IEEE 446
447
DOI 10.1109/ICMLA.2014.78
proportional, integral, and differential coefcients to suitable
ones depending on the state of the controlled plant. It has
already adopted to control dc-dc converters in previous
studies [2]–[7], however, it remains difculties to select
suitable parameters since the process of selection is affected
from some reasons such as load condition, change of circuit
parameter and so forth.
In this study, a neural network based PID parameter se-
lection method is adopted to improve the transient response
of dc-dc converter in coordination with the conventional
PID control. In the presented method, the neural network
is trained to predict the load change from the output voltage
of dc-dc converter. From the prediction result, the suitable
PID parameters are selected to improve the transient char-
acteristics. Additionally, another neural network is adopted
simultaneously for the reference modication [8], which also
contributes to improve transient characteristics. These two
adoption of neural network are easy to design and imple-
mented simply since when they are once trained, we need
no information, sensing devices or tuning of parameters.
We evaluate our presented method in simulation using a
buck type dc-dc converter as a test study. From the results,
it is revealed that our presented method can improve the
transient characteristics of the dc-dc converter compared to
the conventional PID control method.
II. D IGITALLY CONTROLLED DC - DC CONVERTER
Figure 1 shows a buck type dc-dc converter used as a test
study in this paper. Symbols in Fig. 1 express as follows:
Ei , eo and Eo∗ are input voltage, output voltage and desired
output voltage; Tr is a switch for a PWM control; D is a
diode; C is an output capacitor; L is a reactor; R is a load.
We also note that the switching frequency is expressed as
fS .
To control the dc-dc converter, the Digital Pulse Width
Modulation (DPWM) control, a popular way for digitally
controlled dc-dc converter, is adopted in this study [9]–[11].
In the DPWM control, the on-time duration NTon,n of the n-
th switching period is calculated and generated in the digital
controller to control the output voltage eo . In the presented
method, the digital control consists of the PID and neural
controllers to calculate NTon,n . The PID control is adopted to
control the output voltage as same manner as a conventional
 ŝŐŝƚĂůŽŶƚƌŽůΘƌŝǀĞŝƌĐƵŝƚ
‫ܧ‬௢‫כ‬
WtD
‫ܮ‬
ͬ
ܶ௥
‫ܧ‬௜ ‫ܦ‬ ‫ܥ‬ ܴ ݁௢
Figure 1. Buck-type dc-dc converter.
one. Equation (1) shows the conventional PID control to
calculate NTon for DPWM.
NTon ,n = NB − KP (Neo ,n−1 − NR )
 load change in advance. As this study focuses on the
−KI (Neo ,n−1 − NR )
−KD (Neo ,n−1 − Neo ,n−2 )
In Eq. (1), NB expresses the bias term which is constant and
NR expresses the reference value which is also constant and
set to the desired output voltage in the conventional way.
We also note that the sufx n in Eq. (1) and other equations
expresses the n-th switching period.
To obtain effective transient characteristics, two different
neural network controllers are adopted for predicting the
load change and controlling the output voltage. The pre-
diction of load change with neural network is used to select
suitable parameters of the PID control, and the reference
modication with neural network is used to suppress the
overshoot of the output voltage. Details of those two neural
network controller are explained in the next section.
Adopting the presented control method above, a drive
circuit generates the digital PWM signal to control the dc–dc
converter.
III. PID PARAMETER SELECTION WITH NEURAL
NETWORK
In this section, we explain the selection of the PID control
parameters with the neural network. Figure 2 shows an
outline how neural networks are adopted in our presented
method. As we can see from Fig. 2, we adopt neural
networks in two ways, one is for the prediction of the load
change, the other is for the reference modication.
Firstly, the load change is predicted by the neural network
to select the optimal parameters of PID control to improve
the transient response. Then, the PID parameters is changed
to selected ones in the transient state. Additionally, the ref-
erence modication is also adopted to obtain more effective
improvement of the transient response. We will explain the
presented method in detail in the following.
A. Load change prediction
To improve transient characteristics, it is effective to
select the suitable parameters of PID control when the load
change occurs. However, the conventional PID control uses
its parameters as xed values which are selected to keep the
performance of control for any load condition in transient–
state and steady–state simultaneously.
In the presented method, the neural network is adopted
to select the PID parameters to suit the load condition
when the load change occurs. The neural network is trained
to predict the load change (represented as label l) from
the former output voltage data eo,n−3 , eo,n−2 , eo,n−1 for
the n-th switching period as shown in Fig. 2. From the
prediction result L̂c at when the transient state starts, the PID
parameters are changed from KP , KI , KD , which are tuned
with same manner as the conventional way, to the optimal
(l) (l) (l)
ones KP , KI , KD which are determined for the predicted
improvement of the transient-state, the PID parameters are
(1) determined without consideration of the steady-state stability
for each load condition. Therefore, we can obtain more
effective improvement of the transient response compared
to the conventional PID control in the transient-state.
In this study, the step change in load is assumed as the
load change, therefore, the neural network works to predict
a range of step change in load as a label of load change at
when the step change of the load is detected. The predicted
label is used to select not only the PID parameters and but
also the neural network for reference modication in the
transient-state.
B. Gain selection and reference modication
After the prediction of the load change with neural
network, the PID parameters are changed to suitable ones
for the predicted load change as shown in Eq. (2).
(l)
NTon ,n = NB − KP (Neo ,n−1 − NR )
(l)

−KI (Neo ,n−1 − NR )
(l)
−KD (Neo ,n−1 − Neo ,n−2 ) (2)
In this study, the prediction and change of parameters are
done when the step change in load occurs as mentioned
before. We also adopt the reference modication which
works in coordination with the PID control just for the
transient state.
Here we briey describe the reference modication with
neural network method [8] for the improvement of transient
response. In the reference modication with neural network,
the reference in the P control term in the conventional PID
control in Eq. (1) is modied as Eq. (3).
(l)
NTon ,n = NB − KP {Neo ,n−1 − (NR + ΔNR )}
(l)

−KI (Neo ,n−1 − NR )
(l)
−KD (Neo ,n−1 − Neo ,n−2 ) (3)
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447
 PID Parameter Selection and Reference Modification

Optimal PID parameters: ሼ‫ܭ‬௉௟ ‫ܭ‬௟ ‫ܭ‬௟

ǡ ூ ǡ ஽ ሽ

Load Change Prediction ൅

݁௢ ௡ିଷ
ǡ

݁෢
݁௢ ௡ିଷ ݁௢ ௡ିଶ
ǡ ሺଵ ሻ

௢௡
ǡ

predicted load change ݁௢ ௡ିଵ ǡ

݁௢ ௡ିଶ
ǡ ݈
ǡ

݁௢ ௡ିଵ ெ
ܰ ෍ ܰோ െ ܰ௘೚௜ ா௦௧ ௡
ǡ
predicted label 1-st trained NN ሺ ሻ

of load change ο ோൌ
‫ڭ‬ ǡ

௜ୀଵ
݁௢ ௡ିଷ
݁෣
Reference modification with NNs
EEĨŽƌůŽĂĚƉƌĞĚŝĐƚŝŽŶ
ǡ

݁௢ ௡ିଶ ሺெ ሻ
ǡ
௢௡ ǡ

݁௢ ௡ିଵ
ǡ

M-th trained NN
EEƐĨŽƌƌĞĨĞƌĞŶĐĞŵŽĚŝĨŝĐĂƚŝŽŶ

W/ŽŶƚƌŽůůĞƌ
WtD
݁௢ ௡
ǡ
ƵĐŬƚLJƉĞͲŽŶǀĞƌƚĞƌ

Figure 2. Diagram of PID parameter selection and reference modication with neural network controllers.

For this modication, a neural network is trained to esti- training [8].

mate the output voltage at the n-th switching period from
its former data in advance under the PID control. Then,
the modied value ΔNR for the n-th switching period is
obtained as the difference of the xed reference value NR
(1)
and the estimated output voltage NeoEst ,n with the neural
network. This means that the reference modication works
to reduce the difference of the xed reference value NR
and the output voltage at each switching period. ΔNR is
expressed as Eq. (4)
ΔNR,n = NR − Ne(1)
oEst ,n
(4)
In the neural network control, the duration of it is also
devised to improve the transient response effectively [8].
That is, the neural network control works from the time
when the transient state starts and till the output voltage
reaches the point of its rst undershoot. The time to stop
the neural network control is determined by sensed eo as
when eo reaches its rst undershoot.
The training procedure for the reference modication
described above is repeatedly proceeded until enough sup-
pression of the output voltage is obtained. After several
iteration of the training, we obtain neural networks whose
number is same as iteration. Also, ΔNR is replaced using
these neural networks as shown in Eq. (5) after M times
M 
 
ΔNR,n = NR − Ne(i) (5)
oEst ,n
i=1
Here the index i expresses an iterated number of training,
which also indicates a number of neural networks which are
used for the reference modication.
Figure 3 explains that the reference modication and
devised duration of the neural network control. In this case,
the number of iterative training is two. When the transient
state starts, the PID parameters are changed to optimal
ones for the predicted load change with the neural network.
Additionally, other neural networks for the reference mod-
ication works from when the transient state starts till the
output voltage reaches it rst undershoot. It is noted that the
duration of the neural network(s) control is determined by
the nally trained neural network. As the training proceeds
repeatedly, ΔNR is calculated to reduce the difference of eo
and NR and it contributes to improve the transient response
in coordination with the PID control in which the parameters
of it are changed to the optimal ones for the predicted load
change.
IV. E VALUATION
To evaluate the performance the presented method, we
examine the transient response compared with the conven-
tional PID control method in the simulated study. We use

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 ZĞƐƵůƚĂĨƚĞƌϮŶĚƚƌĂŝŶŝŶŐ Table II
ƵƌĂƚŝŽŶŽĨEEĐŽŶƚƌŽů P REDICTED LOAD CHANGE CONDITION .
ZĞƐƵůƚĂĨƚĞƌϭƐƚƚƌĂŝŶŝŶŐ
W/
Condition Step change (A) Optimal PID parameters
W/ƉĂƌĂŵĞƚĞƌƐƐĞůĞĐƚŝŽŶ
Lˆ1 0.2 → 1 KP =6 , KI =0.017 , KD =4
ሼ ‫ܭ‬௉ ǡ ‫ܭ‬ூ ǡ ‫ܭ‬஽ ሽ ሼ‫ܭ‬௉௟ ǡ ‫ܭ‬ூ ௟ ǡ ‫ܭ‬஽௟ ሽ
Lˆ2 0.5 → 1 KP =5 , KI = 0.017, KD =4
ȟܰோ Lˆ3 0.8 → 1 KP =5 , KI =0.03 , KD =4

݁௢ 5.2
5.2
eo

Overshoot:1.68%
5.1
㼼1%
5.1

Transient State 5.0 5

Figure 3. Reference modication ΔNR with neural network [8] and its
effect to transient response. 4.9
4.9

tst:2.67ms
Table I Undershoot:3.09%
4.8
4.8
0.098 0.1 0.102 0.104
Time (s)
0.106 0.108 0.11 0.112

C IRCUIT PARAMETERS OF DC – DC CONVERTER . 0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0

Symbol Value
Ei 20 V
Eo∗ 5V
rated Io 1A
C 940 μF
L 189 μH
fS 100 kHz
PSIM in the simulated evaluation. In the simulation, we use
the circuit parameter condition of dc-dc converter shown in
Table I. The dc-dc converter is regulated to satisfy a rated
Io =1A. A resolution of A/D converter is set to 12bit.
In the evaluation, the PID parameters are conventionally
determined to satisfy the steady-state stability and set to
KP = 4, KI = 0.015, KD = 4 respectively. Those PID
parameter values are changed to be optimal ones for the
predicted load change with the neural network when the load
change is detected. Optimal values are selected for each load
change in advance to improve the transient response as much
as possible.
The neural network for load change prediction is trained
with data of eo when the transient state starts. The load
change is assumed as the step change in load shown in Table
II. That is, the neural network works to predict the label l =
{Lˆ1 , Lˆ2 , Lˆ3 } at the transient state starts. Table II also shows
optimal values of the PID parameters for each load change.
This neural network is trained to predict the label of each
load change from the output voltage. Using the predicted
label, the PID parameters are changed to the optimal ones
at when the transient-state starts.
Together with the PID parameter selection, the neural
networks for reference modication are also trained with
t(ms)
Figure 4. Transient waveform of output voltage with PID. (0.2A → 1A)
data of eo in the transient-state. As mentioned in the previous
section, this training iteratively proceeds till the enough
suppression of eo is obtained. In this case, the iterative
number of training is two for all load changes, therefore, we
obtain two neural networks for each load change condition
which works simultaneously for reference modication.
Figure 4 through 6 show example waveforms to compare
the effect of the PID parameters selection and reference
modication. In this case, the step change in load is from
0.2A to 1A. From the result of Fig. 5, we can conrm the
effect of the PID parameter selection with neural network.
Moreover, we can see from Fig. 6 that, when the reference
modication is adopted in coordination with the parameter
selection, we obtain more effective improvement compared
with others.
Table III summarizes results of transient characteristics in
each case of load change shown in Table II. We can conrm
that transient responses in each load change condition are
effectively improved when both PID parameter selection
and reference modication are adopted. However, we cannot
obtain the improvement of overshoot in case of load change
is Lˆ3 . We consider that this causes from the fact that
the reference modication is adopted only to compensate
the rst undershoot. The duration of reference modication
needs to be improved more effectively in the future study
[12].
The neural network for reference modication is trained
using data of three cases only, as shown in Table II. However,
it needs to predict a reasonable label for a wide range of load
condition. To conrm that our presented method can treat

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449
 Table III
C OMPARISON RESULTS OF TRANSIENT CHARACTERISTICS OF OUTPUT VOLTAGE .

Load change Method Undershoot (%) Overshoot (%) Settling time (ms)

PID 3.09 1.68 2.67

Lˆ1 PID + Parameter selection 2.70 1.57 2.29

PID + Parameter selection + Reference Modication 1.85 0.976 1.19

PID 1.96 1.05 1.55

Lˆ2 PID + Parameter selection 1.82 1.05 1.41

PID + Parameter selection + Reference Modication 1.29 0.731 1.17

PID 0.763 0.401 -

Lˆ3 PID + Parameter selection 0.673 0.716 -

PID + Parameter selection + Reference Modication 0.588 0.673 -

5.2 5.2
eo
5.2 eo
5.2

5.1 Overshoot:1.57% 5.1

㼼1% 㼼1%
5.1 5.1

Overshoot:0.976%
5.0 5
5.0 5

4.9
4.9
4.9
4.9

Undershoot:1.85%
tst:2.29ms tst:1.19ms
Undershoot:2.70%
4.8
4.8
0.098 0.1 0.102 0.104
Time (s)
0.106 0.108 0.11 0.112 4.8
4.8
0.098 0.1 0.102 0.104 0.106 0.108 0.11 0.112

2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0 2.0 4.0

Time (s)

0 0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0

t(ms) t(ms)

Figure 5. Transient waveform of output voltage with PID + Parameter Figure 6. Transient waveform of output voltage with PID + Parameter
selection. (0.2A → 1A) selection + Neural network. (0.2A → 1A)

5.2
5.2
eo

other load change conditions, we examine when the load

change is not same as the training data. 5.1 Overshoot:1.477% 㼼1%
5.1

Figures 7 and 8 show waveforms of the result when the

load change condition is from 0.3A to 1A. In this case, the 5.0 5

load change is predicted as l = Lˆ1 . Figures 9 and 10 show

waveforms of the result when the load change condition is 4.9
4.9

from 0.6 A to 1A. In this case, the load change is predicted

tst:1.64ms
as l = Lˆ2 . In both cases, the transient responses with Undershoot:2.74%
4.8
4.8
0.098 0.1 0.102 0.104 0.106 0.108 0.11 0.112

the presented method are improved effectively compared 0 2.0 4.0

Time (s)

6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0

with the conventional PID control. From these results, the t(ms)
presented method has an advantage when we need to treat
a wide range of a load change variation. Figure 7. Transient waveform of output voltage with PID. (0.3A → 1A)

V. C ONCLUSIONS
This study presents the neural network based PID pa- ral network is adopted to select the suitable parameter
rameter selection method to improve the transient response of the PID control in the transient-state. Additionally, we
of the dc-dc converter. In the presented method, the neu- adopt the reference modication with neural network, which

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450
 5.2 5.2
eo eo
5.2 5.2

5.1 5.1
㼼1% 㼼1%
5.1 5.1

Overshoot:0.875% Overshoot:0.699%

5.0 5
5.0 5

Undershoot:1.03%
4.9
4.9
Undershoot:1.65% 4.9 4.9

tst:1.16ms tst:0.191ms
4.8
4.8
0.098 0.1 0.102 0.104
Time (s)
0.106 0.108 0.11 0.112 4.8 4.8
0.098 0.1 0.102 0.104
Time (s)
0.106 0.108 0.11 0.112

0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0 0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0
t(ms) t(ms)

Figure 8. Transient waveform of output voltage with PID + Parameter Figure 10. Transient waveform of output voltage with PID + Parameter
selection + Neural network. (0.3A → 1A) selection + Neural network. (0.6A → 1A)

5.2
5.2
eo

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㼼1%
5.1

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4.9
4.9 Undershoot:1.53% Autotuning of DC-DC Converters Based on a Model Ref-
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