A Fuzzy-Based Maximum Power Point Tracker for Body Mounted Solar Panels in LEO Satellites

Solar panels are the power subsystem components which provide satellite electrical power. Solar panels characteristics depend on environmental conditions (insolation level, temperature and etc.). In this paper, design and simulation of fuzzy-based MPPT for the body mounted solar panel in a LEO satellite are presented. To show how good the proposed technique is; we applied it into a real system. Simulation results show that the proposed fuzzy-based MPPT ensures a more generated power so that the size of solar panel can be decreased. We used Matlab-Simulink environment for the purpose of simulation. It is shown that if we use the proposed fuzzy-based MPPT, the size of solar panel can be remarkably reduced leading to reduction of the weight and cost of power subsystem in small LEO satellites.