Discharge lamp lighting device, control method thereof, and projector

A discharge lamp lighting device comprising:

• a power control circuit outputting DC current;
• an AC conversion circuit being supplied with the DC current and generating and outputting discharge-lamp driving AC current by inverting the polarity of the DC current at a predetermined time;
• and
• a control unit performing a duty ratio control process of controlling a polarity inversion time of the discharge-lamp driving AC current on the AC conversion circuit to control a duty ratio of the discharge-lamp driving AC current and performing an interval current control process of controlling a current value of the DC current every polarity inversion time interval on the power control circuit,
• the control unit performing the interval current control process so as to control a difference between an average value and a maximum value of the DC current of each polarity inversion time interval on the basis of a difference between the duty ratio of the discharge-lamp driving AC current and a predetermined reference duty ratio of the discharge-lamp driving AC current.