Aplicação de um dispositivo FPGA no controle de um circuito ballast eletrônico para acionamento de lâmpadas HID de 70W

Abstract

Programmable logic devices were introduced about fifteen years ago and nowadays they are used in areas like Telecommunications, Instrumentation and more recently Power Electronics. This work presents the application of an FPGA device in the control of a ballast circuit for driving high intensity discharge lamps. The electronic ballast presents improvements regarding the previous electromagnetic reactors, due to their small size and weight and also because they guarantee a longer life for the lamps. In order to test and verify the proposed control strategy, a prototype was built to drive 70W metal halide and high pressure sodium lamps. Beyond the vantages above mentioned, the prototype also presented a notable reduction in the time needed for the lamp to achieve maximum brightness, in relation to magnetic reactors. Making use of the knowledge obtained during the implementation of the ballast circuit, a didactic kit containing an FPGA device was constructed, and nowadays it is used for teaching digital logic to undergraduate students at Federal University of Uberlândia.