A conceptual design of microcontroller-based power factor corrector circuit

Abstract

One of the concerns to put on the energy efficiency is in relation to the system power factor. From the view of industrial practices, low power factor might cause equipment failure and higher operation costs. This paper proposes a conceptual design of microcontroller-based self-adaptive power factor corrector (PFC) circuit with the intention to be used in the poor power factor (either linear or nonlinear) loads applications. The design of this auto-adjustable power factor corrector is to ensure the entire power system always preserving almost unity power factor and thus optimizing the current consumption. Power factor value is initially measured via microcontroller and it is then compared with a pre-determined reference value. The poor power factor of the entire system will then be adjusted by the aid of the microcontroller to as close as the pre-determined value as possible. The proposed power factor corrector has an adjustable sensitivity of 50 microseconds or 0.9 degree interval step setting. The conceptual design of the power factor corrector circuit has gone through a set of simulation tests using Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) tool. The results obtained are verified that the proposed PFC circuit is capable to produce a reliable output and can be further implemented in practical applications.