Systematic approach to high-power and energy-efficient industrial induction cooker system: Circuit design, control strategy, and prototype evaluation

This paper presents a systemic design of induction cooker with convex bottom Chinese wok for commercial applications. The significant impacts of high-power commercial induction cooker to the global environments are first examined. On the basis of analyzing the coil characteristics and performance requirements, the overall power structure of the induction cooker is designed with underlying operation principle explained. In addition, the associated control algorithms for the power regulation are studied in detail. The feasibility of applying each control scheme for the high power induction cooker system is also analyzed. In particular, the loss analysis of switches facilitates comparing the obtained results by adopting different control methods. In order to achieve high electrical and thermal performances, this research proposes an optimized hybrid power regulation strategy. The block diagram of the control strategy is given, with simulation conducted to evaluate the achievable performance of the proposed solution. Finally, comprehensive experiments including thermal pattern examination tests, efficiency tests, as well as electromagnetic interference tests are carried out. The experimental results sufficiently verify the validity and reliability of the presented commercial induction cooker.