A novel, digitally-controlled, portable photovoltaic power source

This paper is to present a novel, digitally-controlled, portable photovoltaic (PV) power source that can be used as a standalone power source in remote missions or made on the jacket to power portable personal electronics. Since the solar cell has a nonlinear voltage-current characteristic, the photovoltaic power system has to track the solar array maximum power point to ensure the efficient operation. The battery is used to store energy when the solar irradiance is sufficient or the load is light and to provide energy to the load in the case of no sunlight or a heavy load. For advanced batteries such as lithium ion cells, the charging current or voltage should be limited in order to protect the battery. The charging and discharging currents are regulated by a charger and a discharger respectively. Since the battery voltage depends on its state-of-charge and the solar array peak-power voltage varies with temperature level, illumination level and age of the solar array, it is essential to cascade a power converter at the system output to obtain bus regulation. To reduce the solar array temperature, a shunt regulator is used to limit the charging current or voltage of the battery by dissipating the excess solar array power. In this paper, an integrated, multi-objective digital power controller for this PV power source is presented, and a state machine based model of the multiobjective controller is described. The large-signal behavior of the system is analyzed. The controller design is then verified by numerical simulation in the virtual test bed (VTB) environment.

[1]  Antonello Monti,et al.  A multilanguage environment for interactive simulation and development controls for power electronics , 2001, 2001 IEEE 32nd Annual Power Electronics Specialists Conference (IEEE Cat. No.01CH37230).

[2]  Roger A. Dougal,et al.  Dynamic lithium-ion battery model for system simulation , 2002 .

[3]  S. P. Vukson,et al.  Lithium-ion testing for spacecraft applications , 2003 .

[4]  J. J. Loferski,et al.  Solar Energy Conversion: The Solar Cell , 1978 .

[5]  Jeff K. Pieper,et al.  A case study of multi-objective control: synthesis and analysis , 1998, Proceedings of the 1998 IEEE International Conference on Control Applications (Cat. No.98CH36104).

[6]  R.D. Middlebtook,et al.  Design of the HEAO Main Bus Shunt Regulator , 1976, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

[7]  Johan H R Enslin,et al.  Integrated photovoltaic maximum power point tracking converter , 1997, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron..

[8]  Tomonobu Senjyu,et al.  Neural-network-based maximum-power-point tracking of coupled-inductor interleaved-boost-converter-supplied PV system using fuzzy controller , 2003, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron..

[9]  Toshihiko Noguchi,et al.  Short-current pulse-based maximum-power-point tracking method for multiple photovoltaic-and-converter module system , 2002, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron..

[10]  Tsutomu Hoshino,et al.  Maximum photovoltaic power tracking: an algorithm for rapidly changing atmospheric conditions , 1995 .

[11]  D. Drechsel,et al.  An adaptive control system modelled as finite state machine , 1990, ACE '90. Proceedings of [XVI Annual Convention and Exhibition of the IEEE In India].

[12]  R. Dougal,et al.  Dynamic Multi-Physics Model for Solar Array , 2002 .

[13]  O. Wasynczuk,et al.  Dynamic Behavior of a Class of Photovoltaic Power Systems , 1983, IEEE Power Engineering Review.

[14]  Roger A. Dougal,et al.  Design and testing of spacecraft power systems using VTB , 2003 .

[15]  Y. Nishi.  Lithium ion secondary batteries; past 10 years and the future , 2001 .

[16]  E.A.A. Coelho,et al.  Stand-alone photovoltaic energy storage system with maximum power point tracking , 2003, Eighteenth Annual IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition, 2003. APEC '03..

[17]  Peter J. Fleming,et al.  Controllability analysis of multi objective control systems , 2002, Proceedings. IEEE International Symposium on Computer Aided Control System Design.

[18]  T. Senjyu,et al.  Feedforward maximum power point tracking of PV systems using fuzzy controller , 2002 .