In my pursuit for a LPSU design, to get more HFe gain, higher current capability, decrease Vce dropout, improve thermals, etc. I would use 2 (or more) pass transistors. This requires load balancing resistors, so I thought I'd get clever and use these balancing resistors to also measure current for my current limiting capability! See pictures and explanation below.
Details: The first picture below is a simplified diagram of how I currently have current feedback implemented. I generate a fixed (user adjustable) voltage across a 500R resistor via a current sink and an error amp (currently LM358) drives output pass transistor(s). Because the op amp drives the output to ensure the inputs are the same, the output current can be precisely regulated. It maintains a precise voltage differential across the shunt by means of the pass transistor.
I don't want to take the naive approach with multiple resistances in the path of the current flow from the unregulated supply to the output, for obvious reasons. I could instead just measure the Vdrop on one of these balancing resistors, but that assumes that the current through those resistors is identical, which is not the case. So instead, what if I expand a bit on the first schematic, leading to the 2nd schematic... Would that work?
I want to understand the mathematical analysis behind it to prove it does work. There are a bunch of unknowns I have and so I don't really know where to start with an analysis.
MORE details! I am asking this because I plan to use this in a in my very own linear power supply design. The current design uses 2 NPN style Sziklai pair's made with MJE2955's and 2N4401's. I choose this for it's high gain and low dropout. (The highest dropout is 2V with a single pass element vs 5V of when I tried a discrete darlington configuration.) This means my supply voltage can be something simple like a 9V-0V-9V transformer, which after rectification can output 24V average under some load (haven't selected a transformer yet, and haven't yet bother to calculate the peak to peak ripple either.)