Patent ID: 9502894
Filing Date: 2016-11-22
CPC Classification: G06F,H02J,H02M

Claim Text:
1. A voltage controller operable to generate control signals for controlling an intermediate bus voltage (VIB) in an intermediate bus architecture power system, the intermediate bus voltage comprising a voltage output from a first stage DC-to-DC power converter to at least one second stage DC-to-DC power converter via the intermediate voltage bus in the intermediate bus architecture power system, the voltage controller comprising: a receiver operable to receive, in a first iteration and a second iteration subsequent to the first iteration, at least one of voltage and current values input to the first stage DC-to-DC power converter; an efficiency measuring unit operable to determine a measure of an efficiency of the intermediate bus architecture power system in accordance with the received values by: (i) determining a first value of the efficiency measure using the received values from the first iteration corresponding to a first intermediate bus voltage (VIB) that has been incremented from an initial value to a first predetermined value, (ii) determining a second value of the efficiency measure using the received values from the second iteration corresponding to a second, different intermediate bus voltage (VIB) that has been decremented from the initial value to a second predetermined value, and (iii) determining which of the first and second values of efficiency measure represents a higher system efficiency; and a control signal generator operable to generate control signals in dependence upon the determined first and second efficiency measure values to cause the first stage DC-to-DC converter to set the intermediate bus voltage (VIB) to a value corresponding to the first or second value of efficiency measure depending on which of said first and second values was determined to represent the higher system efficiency, wherein the efficiency measuring unit and the control signal generator are operable to: