Digital power

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Digital Power or often also used under the term Intelligent Digital Power is a catchphrase in electrical engineering that describes digitally regulated, controlled or monitored power supplies .

With conventional switched-mode power supplies, the regulation and monitoring of the output voltage (s) is taken over by an analog circuit . With digital power supply units, one or more of these functions is carried out by a microcontroller or DSP . The control process is loaded into the controller as software .

Advantage of digital power

The advantage of digitally controlled switched-mode power supplies is that they can intervene in the control process at any time and adapt it to the current requirements of the power supply. This increases the efficiency of the digital power supply compared to an analog one. By programming, the control process can be mapped with complex mathematical descriptions or algorithms, which would be associated with greater effort in analog technology.

Disadvantage of digital power

The development and technical effort is higher compared to an analog power supply, which is reflected in the costs. The voltages must first be digitized and a relatively high-speed processor is required for processing in order to make all the necessary calculations within one switching period. Some functions, such as overcurrent shutdown, must nevertheless be implemented in an analog manner.

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