Intermittent chaos in switching power supplies due to unintended coupling of spurious signals

Abstract

This paper studies the "intermittent" chaos and subharmonics observed in switching DC/DC converters using a simple circuit model that describes possible unintended coupling of some weak spurious signal to the converter. The study shows that the signal strength and frequency of the intruding signal are vital parameters that affect the type of intermittent behavior and the period of intermittency. Simulations and experimental results are presented.