In the so-called chopper-type converter consisting of two switching elements and a reactor, in order to prevent these two switching elements from being simultaneously turned on (brought into conduction) when changing the switching states of these two switching elements, a dead time is generally provided during which both of the switching elements are temporarily turned off. However, there is a problem that, due to the influence of this dead time, the output voltage of the converter may vary when the direction of the current flowing through the reactor changes.
In order to address this problem, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2007-325435 (PTL 1) discloses a power supply device that can suppress an unexpected increase in the output voltage of the boost converter. In this power supply device, when a phenomenon occurs in the switching cycle of the switching element in which the current flowing through the reactor of the boost converter is retained at a value 0 during the dead time, it is determined that the cyclical zero current retention state is brought about. Then, the voltage command value of the boost converter is corrected downward by a prescribed voltage. This allows suppression of an unexpected increase in the output voltage of the boost converter caused due to the influence of the dead time (see PTL 1).