Abstract

Zero Average Dynamics (ZAD) control strategy has been developed, applied and widely analyzed in the last decade. Numerous and interesting phenomena have been studied in systems controlled by ZAD strategy. In particular, the ZAD-controlled buck converter has been a source of nonlinear and nonsmooth phenomena, such as period-doubling, merging bands, period-doubling bands, torus destruction, fractal basins of attraction or codimension-2 bifurcations. In this paper, we report a new bifurcation scenario found inside band-merging scenario of ZAD-controlled buck converter. We use a novel qualitative framework named Dynamic Linkcounter (DLC) approach to characterize chaotic attractors between consecutive crisis bifurcations. This approach complements the results that can be obtained with Bandcounter approaches. Self-similar substructures denoted as Complex Dynamic Links (CDLs) are distinguished in multiband chaotic attractors. Geometrical changes in multiband chaotic attractors are detected when the control parameter of ZAD strategy is varied between two consecutive crisis bifurcations. Linkcount subtracting staircases are defined inside band-merging scenario.