Microcontroller Based Triggering Circuit for Rectifier Circuit 2014-01-1880

Every electrical and electronic gadget around us requires charge for its operation. The normal electrical quantity with which they get charged is direct and not alternative. The alternative quantity has to be converted to direct quantity before the devices get charged. The conversion of the alternative current and voltages into the direct quantity is known as rectification. The normal rectification process will result in the output DC voltage in an uncontrolled fashion. Hence in order to obtain the controlled output voltage, we must use a controlled rectifier. This controlled rectifier can be obtained by the use of semiconductor devices like thyristors, IGBTs etc. The gate terminals of these devices require pulses to be given for triggering. But the pulses given must be in such a way that they must trigger the semiconductor devices so that required level of rectified DC output voltage is obtained.

In order to obtain these triggering pulses, many pulse modification techniques are available. For the smooth variation of the triggering angle and hence the smooth control of output DC voltage, we have used pulse width modulation technique.