PSO-Based Adaptive Perturb and Observe MPPT Technique for Photovoltaic Systems

The classical method of perturb and observe (P&O) is mostly utilized because of it is simple technique, ease of implementation and low cost. Although, it has high oscillations around maximum power point (MPP) at steady state due to perturbation and challenge between step size and the convergence time. To avoid the drawbacks of classical P&O methods, this paper presents adaptive P&O using optimized proportional integral (PI) controller by particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. To evaluate the proposed method, a PV system model is designed with different scenarios under various weather conditions. For each scenario, simulations are carried out and the results are compared with the other classical P&O MPPT methods. The results revealed that the proposed PSO-PI-P&O MPPT method improved the tracking performance, response to the fast changing weather conditions and also has less oscillation around MPP as compared to the classical P&O methods.