Analog control algorithm for Maximum Power tracker employed in photovoltaic applications

Tracking the Maximum Power Point(MPP) of a photovoltaic(PV) array is usually an essential part of a PV system. The problem considered by Maximum Power Point Tracking(MPPT) techniques is to find the voltage VMPP or current IMPP at which a PV array should operate to generate the maximum power output PMPP under a given temperature and irradiance. The MPPT control methods such as the perturb and observe method and the incremental conductance method require microprocessor or DSP to determine if the duty cycle should be increased or not. This paper proposes a simple and fast analog MPPT method. The proposed control scheme will track the MPP very fast and its hardware implementation is so simple, compared with the conventional techniques. The new algorithm can successfully track the MPP even in case of rapidly changing atmospheric conditions and has higher efficiency than ordinary algorithms.