An MPPT Strategy Based on a Surface-Based Polynomial Fitting for Solar Photovoltaic Systems Using Real-Time Hardware

Abstract

This paper presents an optimal design of a surface-based polynomial fitting for tracking the maximum power point (MPPT) of a photovoltaic (PV) system, here named surface-based polynomial fitting (MPPT-SPF). The procedure of the proposed MPPT-SPF strategy is based on a polynomial model to characterize data from the PV module with a global fit. The advantage of using polynomials is that they provide a good fit within a predefined data range even though they can diverge greatly from that range. The MPPT-SPF strategy is integrated with a DC-DC boost converter to verify its performance and its interaction with different control loops. Therefore, the MPPT strategy is applied to the reference outer PI control loop, which in turn provides the current reference to the inner current loop based on a discrete-time sliding current control. A real-time and high-speed simulator (PLECS RT Box 1) and a digital signal controller (DSC) are used to implement the hardware-in-the-loop system to obtain the results. The proposed strategy does not have a high computational cost and can be implemented in a commercial low-cost DSC (TI 28069M). The proposed MPPT strategy is compared with a conventional perturb and observe method to prove its effectiveness under demanding tests.