A MPPT WITH SLIDING MODE CONTROL

FOR PV SYSTEM
Author: Amuthini.P1; Vijayashree.C2; Preetha.M3
Affiliation: Assistant Professor1, 2, 3; Dept of EEE1, 2, 3, Prathyusha Institute of Technology
& Management, India1, 2, 3

pamuthini@gmail.com1; vijichinnu104@gmail.com2; preethavalli@gmail.com3

ABSTRACT open circuit voltage of around 20V. The current rating

DC-DC power converters are added for matching the of the modules depends on the area of the individual
load to the photo voltaic modules (PVM) because of the cells, if the cell area is large; the current output of the
nonlinear behavior of the photo voltaic cells. A cell is high. For obtaining higher power output, the
maximum power point tracker for PV cells, PVM and solar PV modules are connected in series and parallel
PV arrays are presented using a dynamic optimal combinations forming solar PV arrays.
voltage estimator to estimate the voltage at which a PV systems constitute an environmental friendly
PV cell generates its maximum power and the dynamic alternative way for energy production using the
voltage estimator force the PV cell to reach and energy from the sun. They operate quietly without
operate at that voltage in a finite time and to stay emissions, can be installed quickly and are modular
there for all future time so that the maximum power is which has the advantage that the more units can be
available to the load. This is obtained by controlling added if the load increases. PV system has long
the duty cycle of a DC-DC converter using sliding mode lifetime and less maintenance requirements make
control (SMC). The load will be composed of a battery them an ideal solution for remote applications when
bank. A sliding mode controller is given the estimated used as autonomous (stand-alone) systems. Solar PV
maximum power point as a reference for it to track systems can be designed and put in operation for
that point and force the PV system to operate in this both autonomous and grid connected application.
point. This method has the advantage that it will Stand-alone PV systems are commonly encountered
guarantee the maximum output power possible by the in developing countries and remote locations.
array configuration while considering the dynamic Photovoltaic cells have a single operating point where
parameters such as temperature and solar irradiance the values of the current and voltage of the cell result
and delivering more power to charge the battery. SMC in a maximum power output [1]. These values
is designed and simulated using MATLAB/SIMULINK correspond to a particular resistance which is equal
environment. The simulation results show that the to the division of the maximum voltage and maximum
maximum power is obtained from PVM at all the current. By connecting the PV cell directly to a load or
operating conditions using SMC. a battery, the output power can be severely reduced
due to load mismatching or, in case of a battery, load
Keywords voltage mismatching. Since this operating point
Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT), depends on factors like temperature, solar irradiance
Photovoltaic (PV), Sliding Mode Control (SMC), and load impedance, a device capable of tracking the
Dc-Dc Converter maximum power point and force the PVM to operate
at that point is required [3]. A maximum power point
1. INTRODUCTION tracker (MPPT) is a device capable of search for the
Renewable energy sources play an important role in
point of maximum power and, using DC-DC
the current scenario. Various renewable sources such
converters, extracts the maximum power available by
as solar energy, wind energy, geothermal etc. are
the cell. By controlling the duty cycle of the switching
harness for electric power generation. Among the
frequency of the converter we can change the
renewable energy sources, solar PV energy has been
equivalent voltage of the cell and by that, its
drawing increasing interest in recent years as an
equivalent resistance into the one in which the PVM is
alternative and important source of energy for the
in the maximum power operating point.
future. The solar energy is directly converted into
electrical energy by solar photovoltaic module. The Several methods have been designed and
photovoltaic modules are made up of silicon cells. The implemented to search for this operation point are
silicon solar cells which give output voltage of around Perturb & Observe, Hill Climbing Method, Incremental
0.7V under open circuit condition [13]. Many such conductance algorithm, neural network, Linear
cells are connected in series to get a solar PV module. reoriented method. Some of the disadvantages with
Normally in a module there are 36 cells, which give an these methods are that some of them require doing a

© 2014, IJournals All Rights Reserved Page 5

lot of iterations to calculate the optimal steady state
duty ratio. Some of them use approximate values that
do not guarantee near maximum power output. Some
of them can be very complex, can be slow and can
become instable if the MPP moves abruptly.

2. PROPOSED SYSTEM
Figure 1 shows the proposed scheme for the MPPT.

Fig 2: Equivalent Circuit Model of PV

The relationship among different currents and

voltages of the equivalent circuit model of PV module
is given by,

KCL
Fig 1: Proposed System Scheme

This system use a PV array (s x p) composed of s in

series cells and p in parallel cells. It is then connected Diode Characteristics
to a DC-DC converter in order to increase or decrease
the desired voltage. It is then connected directly to
the load, which is composed of a 12 V battery. The
duty cycle of the converter is controlled by a sliding
mode controller. KVL
The proposed model will guarantee the extraction of
the maximum power that can be produced by the  q(V  Rse I PV )   V  Rse I PV
I  I    
PVM while regulating the load voltage to the battery’s PV
I 0 exp Ak
T  1 (4)
ph
R
    
 
voltage [3]. That way we can have a workable load B sh
 q
voltage that can be connected to an inverter while
matching the load resistance to the PV optimal II  V  R 
resistance.  1 (5)
d I 0 exp se PV
AK

3. MODELLING OF PV PANEL   B 
A photovoltaic PV Generator is the whole assembly of
solar cells, connections, protective parts, supports etc. A real solar cell can be characterized by the following
Solar cells are made of semiconductor fundamental parameters,
materials(usually silicon),which are specially treated  Short circuit current: Isc= Iph. It is the greatest
to form an electric field, positive on one side value of the current generated by cell. It is
(backside) and negative on the other (towards the proposed under short circuit condition: V=0.
sun).When solar energy (photons) hits the solar cell,
electrons are knocked loose from the atoms in the  Open circuit voltage: corresponds to the
semiconductor material, creating electron-hole pairs. voltage drop across the diode, when it is
If electrical conductors are then attached to the traversed by the Photocurrent Iph, namely
positive and negative sides, forming an electrical when the generated current is I=0.It reflects
circuit, the electrons are captured in the form of the voltage of the cell in the night and it can be
electric current Iph (photocurrent). During darkness, mathematically expressed as
the solar cell is not an active device, it works as a
Voc= Vt ln (Iph /Io) (6)
diode. That is a p-n junction. It produces neither a
current nor a voltage. However, if it is connected to an Where Vt= mkTe/e is known as thermal voltage and
external supply (large voltage) it generates a current Te is the absolute cell temperature.
Id, called diode current or dark current [2]. A PV
module, which converts light into electricity, can be  Maximum Power Point is the operating point,
modeled as a single diode model, as shown in figure 2 at which the power dissipated in the resistive
load is maximum
Pmax= Imax . Vmax (7)
 Maximum efficiency is the ratio between the
maximum power and the incident light power
η=Pmax/Pin= Imax Vmax /AGa (8)
© 2014, IJournals All Rights Reserved Page 6
 Where Ga is the ambient irradiation and A is the cell
Table 1. Operating Modes Based On Switch
area,
Combinations
Solar cell I-V and P-V characteristics are shown in
Figure 3 and Figure 4 respectively

5. MAXIMUM POWER POINT

TRACKING
Fig 3: I-V Characteristics of solar cell When a solar PV system is developed for practical
applications, the I-V characteristics keeps on
changing with insolation and temperature. In order to
receive the maximum power, the load must adjust
itself accordingly to track the maximum power point.
The I-V characteristics of PV system along with some
common loads are shown in fig 5. An ideal load is one
that tracks the maximum power point.

Fig 4: P-V Characteristics of solar cell

4. NON INVERTING BUCK BOOST DC-

DC CONVERTER
The diagram in Figure 5 shows the structure of the
Fig 6: Characteristics of PV and some loads
modified buck-boost converter.
If the operating point departs significantly from the
maximum power point, it may be a desire to
interpose an electronic maximum power point
tracker (MPPT) between is an adaptation of DC-DC
switching voltage regulator. Coupling to the load for
maximum power point transfer may require either
providing a higher voltage at a lower current or lower
voltage for higher current.

The PV panel gives maximum power P max, at a

particular voltage Vmp and current Imp. Now it can
be interpreted that, the PV panel R rmax, becomes equal
Fig 5: Modified buck-Boost converter circuit to the load resistance. There are several methods of
You can use this converter as buck-boost converter, MPP tracking to ensure maximum output from the PV
as a buck converter or as a boost converter by panel.
selecting different combinations of switches SW1 and
SW2 driven by the PWM1 and PWM2 signals output 5.1Existing topologies employed for
by the microcontroller [10]. This converter can be PV system
used as a non inverting buck-boost converter by Several methods have been designed and
selecting the operating mode from Table 1 which implemented to search for the maximum power
briefly describes the converter modes. operation point.

5.1.1 Constant Voltage Method

In a very simple MPP tracking technique, the PV panel
voltage is compared with a constant reference voltage
that corresponds to the MPP voltage under specified
ambient conditions. The error signal is used to change
the duty cycle of a dc-dc converter, interfaced

© 2014, IJournals All Rights Reserved Page 7

 between the PV panel and the load, so as to make the
to improve the utilization of the produced energy
PV panel voltage equal to the MPP voltage. This
when connected to a load. For this case the load it’s a
method is very simple to implement, but is not
battery and a resistance. This SMC employs one
accurate [3]. There is substantial power wastage, as it
reaching phase and another sliding phase. The sliding
does not take into account the effect of changes in
phase consists of higher switching frequency known
solar insolation and temperature.
as chattering. Though chattering is responsible for the
5.1.2 Perturb-and-observation method robustness of this technique but it is objectionable
because of switching losses and electromagnetic
The current drawn from the PV panel is perturbed
interference.
and the resulting output power is observed. If an
increased current results in higher power, it is further 6. SLIDING MODE CONTROL
increased till the output power begins to decline. On
the other hand, if an increase in current results in less A sliding mode controller is a variable structure
power than before, then current is decreased until control where the dynamics of a non linear system is
power output stops increasing and begins to go down. altered via the application of a high frequency
A drawback of PAO method is that the operating point switching control. In sliding mode control, the
oscillates around the Output Power MPP [4]. trajectories of the system are forced to reach a sliding
Moreover, in rapidly changing atmospheric manifold of surface, where it exhibit desirable
conditions, the MPPT takes considerable time to track features, in finite time and to stay on the manifold for
the MPP and during this interval the significant all future time. It is achieved by suitable control
amount of power is wasted. strategy. To apply sliding mode control we have to
know if the system can reach the sliding manifold.
5.1.3 Incremental Conductance Method Once the systems reach the sliding manifold, the
The incremental conductance method, compares the controller has to force the system to stay in the
incremental conductance of the PV panel with its manifold for all future time.
instantaneous conductance and changes the duty
ratio of the c-dc converter such that Sliding Mode Control is widely use for a lot of
applications including control systems for DC/DC
converters, power supply, electric grid connections,
motors speed regulator, position control system,
where V and I are PV panel voltage and current among others.
respectively. The method is based on the fact that at To design the sliding mode controller we have to
MPP, dP/dV = 0 hence this method, though accurate, select the desired surface. We want to obtain the
needs complex control circuit [6]. maximum power that can be extracted from the PV
module at the given temperature and irradiance
5.1.4 Voltage Based Maximum Power conditions. Since we know the output voltage we have
Point Method to have in order to extract the maximum power from
The voltage Vmp at which the solar panel gives the PV system, we choose a surface that will force the
maximum power conditions, the Vmp also changes system to reach that voltage in a finite time and stay
approximately in same proportion. It has shown that there for infinite time. With that in mind, we chose
there exists almost a linear relation between V and the following sliding manifold
Voc

V is the output voltage of the PV cell and Vop is the

where Mv is called the voltage factor. M v has a optimal voltage. This sliding manifold will assure us
different value for different solar panels. It is found to to force all the trajectories of the system to reach the
be 0.8 for the solar panels used for theoretical and optimal voltage and to keep it in the optimal voltage
experimental analysis [8]. for all future time. Since the optimal voltage is
dynamic since it change when changes occur in the
Other methods that have been used to obtain the
temperature and irradiance this sliding surface is also
maximum power are parameters estimations, neural
changing with respect to the temperature and
networks, adaptive hill climbing [12] and linear
irradiance giving us a dynamic sliding surface. The
reoriented method.
sliding mode will be controlling the duty cycle of a
5.2Proposed topology employed for switching device. So the switching device will have
two operation states
PV system
5.2.1 Sliding Mode Controller
An implementation of a maximum power point
tracker, based in reaching a reference open circuit
voltage, using a sliding mode controller obtained to Now, the controller will behave in the following way:
control the duty cycle of a DC-DC converter in order
to force the PV module to operate at its maximum
power point, for a given temperature and irradiance,

© 2014, IJournals All Rights Reserved Page 8

 A control law that guarantees us that our controller
will behave in that way is given by the following
equation:

This law of control also guarantees us that the system

trajectories will reach the proposed manifold and will
stay there for all future time. This can be explained in
a practical way [3]. At first, because the PVM is not
connected, the PVM output voltage will be equal to its
open circuit voltage. Since the open circuit voltage is
greater than the optimal voltage the switching device
will be on. When the switch is on, the PVM output
voltage will begin to drop because of the load
mismatching until it reaches below the optimal
voltage. Then the switch will turn off creating an open
circuit condition forcing the PVM output voltage to
increase up to its open circuit voltage. When the
output voltage passes the optimal voltage then the Fig 7: Simulation Scheme for PV Sub circuit
switch will turn off and the sequence will start again
and will continue for all future time. This control law 7.2 Simulation Model of PV with FSMC
works for a variety of DC-DC converters like the Buck
converter, SEPIC converter and Buck- Boost
MPPT
converter.

7. SIMULATION
The system was simulated using Matlab’s Simulink
software with the power system toolbox. With this
software we simulate and test the sliding mode
controller and the proposed model. The simulink
model is shown at figure 8. The solar Cell model was
represented by a single block composed by a Sub
circuit. The system was simulated under constant
ambient temperature and solar irradiance. The
simulation results of the PV system with constant
ambient conditions Connected to the battery through
buck converter are shown in Figure 12.

7.1Simulation Model of PV Module

7.1.1 Model Description Fig 8: Simulation Scheme for the Proposed
The standard PV module data-sheet parameters are Model
shown in Table 2
Table 2. The Standard PV Module Data-Sheet 8. RESULTS
Parameters Table 3 shows the results of the estimated Pmax for the
S.No Parameters Values case of battery connected to PV through converter
compared to the values of battery connected directly
1 Short circuit current, Isc 5.45A to the PV. The error percent for the voltage and
2 Open circuit voltage, Voc 22.2V current stays within acceptable values. Since the
3 Rated current IR at maximum estimation is very near to the Optimal values, by
4.95A
power point(MPP), Imp forcing the system to operate at the estimated
voltage, guarantee us to be working in a near
4 Rated voltage VR at MPP, Vmp 17.2V maximum power point.

These values are calculated under standard test Figure 12 validate the sliding mode controller and
conditions (1kW/m2, 1.5 AM, 25 oC). A bypass diode ensure that the PV operates at its maximum power
(a single diode across the entire module) can be even under standard test conditions (STC) and under
included. Temperature effects are not modeled. varying solar irradiation condition while supplying a
higher power to the battery. It can be seen that the
7.1.2 Sub Circuit Model of PV Module proposed method increase significantly the available
power delivered to the battery.

© 2014, IJournals All Rights Reserved Page 9

 Table 3. Simulation Results of the Estimated
Maximum Power

Battery Battery
Insolation Connected Connected to
Directly to PV Through
(W/m2) PV Converter
Ppv(W) Pmax(W)
100 5.61 5.86
200 14.51 14.56
300 22.5 23.49
400 30.39 32.53
500 38.2 41.58
600 45.93 50.6
700 53.57 59.53
800 61.11 68.31 Fig 11: P-V Characteristics of PV Module
900 68.55 76.87
1000 75.87 85.14
8.2 Simulation results of Voltage,
current and Power

Fig 9: Comparison plot of Actual PV (without

MPPT) Power vs. Maximum PV (with MPPT)
Power

8.1 I-V and P-V Characteristics

waveform

Fig 12: Output waveforms at battery when

connected to proposed MPPT at varying
Insolation condition

9. CONCLUSION
This paper presents a simple photovoltaic solar cell
Fig 10: I-V Characteristics of PV Module dynamic sliding mode controlled maximum power
point tracker for battery charging applications
capable of compute the maximum power point under
constant ambient temperature and varying solar
irradiation. The proposed Sliding Mode controller
only requires the array output voltage and the

© 2014, IJournals All Rights Reserved Page 10

 optimal voltage which is continuously computed.
[7] Kamel Ben Saad, Abdelaziz Sahbani And
From the simulation results is evident that a
Mohamed Benrejeb, " Sliding Mode Control And
maximum power is tracked and achieved under
Fuzzy Sliding Mode Control For Dc-Dc
constant ambient temperature and varying solar
Converters’’ Research Unit Lara, National
irradiance.
Engineering School Of Tunis (Enit), Tunis,
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