Modeling of fluorescent lamp for design of electronic ballast

Abstract

The efficiency and life-span of fluorescent lamps can be greatly improved by the usage of electronic ballasts instead of conventional inductive chokes. These electronic ballasts are also much lighter and more compact. They are usually based on resonant power converter topologies and are difficult to design and optimize. Computer simulations can help in the design and analysis of electronic ballasts provided an accurate model of the fluorescent lamp is available. Presently, such model is not available in industry standard simulators such as PSpice. Therefore it is desired by many researchers and engineers.