An Improved MPPT Interleaved Boost Converter for

Solar Electric Vehicle Application

Farid Khoucha, Ali Benrabah, Omar Herizi, Abdelaziz Kheloui, Mohamed
Benbouzid

To cite this version:

Farid Khoucha, Ali Benrabah, Omar Herizi, Abdelaziz Kheloui, Mohamed Benbouzid. An
Improved MPPT Interleaved Boost Converter for Solar Electric Vehicle Application. IEEE
POWERENG 2013, May 2013, Istanbul, Turkey. pp.1076-1081, 2013. <hal-00926317>

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 An Improved MPPT Interleaved Boost Converter for
Solar Electric Vehicle Application

F. Khoucha, A. Benrabah, O. Herizi, A. Kheloui M.E.H Benbouzid

Département Electricité & UER Electrotechnique University of Brest, EA 4325 LBMS
Ecole Militaire Polytechnique, Bordj El Bahri, Alger. Rue de Kergoat, CS 93837, 29238 Brest Cedex 03,
ALGERIE FRANCE
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract—An interleaved boost dc/dc converter is regulation particularly for a common dc bus. The advantages
developed featuring smaller input/output filters, faster and disadvantages of several topologies of dc/dc converters,
dynamic response and lower device stress than based on their component are presented and compared in [4].
conventional designs, for solar electric vehicle (SEV)
applications. The converter is connected between the PV DC Link
photovoltaic power generation and dc bus in a multisource
energy storage system of a SEV. Typically, interleaved
converters require a current control loop to reduce the IM
input current ripples, the output voltage ripples, and the
size of passive components with high efficiency. A
Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) controller for a
Photovoltaic (PV) solar system associated to backup source
(Battery) guarantees an uninterrupted power supply and DC-AC
assist the propulsion of the vehicle during transients and
recover energy during regenerative braking. The design, Battery
construction, and testing of an experimental hardware DC-DC
prototype is presented, with the test results included.
Figure 1. Block diagram multisource energy storage system of a SEV
Keywords-component: Interleaved dc-dc converter; Solar
electric vehicle; MPPT; Energy storage system. Furthermore, for high-power applications, interleaved
converters have been proposed for use in electric vehicle
I. INTRODUCTION applications [5].
The solar electric vehicle (SEV), as shown in Fig. 1, utilizes
Photovoltaic power generation technologies are expected to
a PV panel as the main power source and the ESS (e.g.,
become an attractive power source for automotive applications
batteries) as the auxiliary power source to assist the propulsion
because of their cleanness, high efficiency, and high
of the vehicle during transients and to recuperate energy
reliability. Although PV systems exhibit good power
during regenerative braking. In this configuration, the PV is
capability during steady-state operation, the dynamic response
connected to the dc bus through an interleaved boost
of PV during transient and instantaneous peak power demands
converter, whereas the ESS is connected to the dc bus via a
is relatively slow. Therefore, the PV system can be hybridized
bidirectional dc/dc converter.
with energy storage systems (ESS) (e.g., batteries and/or
The dc/dc converter is one of the most important
supercapacitors) to improve the performance of the PV system
components in a PV powered system. It allows a desired level
during transient and instantaneous peak power demands of an
of dc voltage to be obtained without having to increase the
electric vehicle (EV) and to recover energy through
primary source size. As a result, this paper will focus on a
regenerative braking [1]–[2].
dc/dc converter that interfaces the PV with the powertrain of
For these applications, a high-power dc/dc converter is a
SEVs. In high-power boost converters, the major design
key element that interfaces the PV or ESS with the dc bus in
aspect is the selection of the boost inductor and the output
the powertrain of the SEV. Therefore, the dc system with
capacitor. The major concern is the size, cost, and weight of
multiple dc/dc converters may play an important role in the
such a high-power inductor that is the single heaviest
future powertrain system. The topology design of dc/dc
component in the entire dc/dc converter. To reduce the
converters has been explained in many pieces of literature [3].
inductor size and weight, a small inductance value is required.
In addition, the design of high-power dc/dc converters and
their controller play an important role to control power
In addition, the dc/dc converter performance directly ELECTRIC CHARACTERISTICS OF SOLAR ARRAY BP SOLAR
influences the characteristics of the PV or the ESS. BP SX 50.
Indeed, the ripple and harmonic content of the current is
one of the various phenomena influencing PV efficiency as Maximum power (Pmax) 50W
well as battery lifetime [6]. So the main objective of this Operating Voltage (Vmpp) 16.8 V
Operating Current (Impp) 2.97 A
research is to minimize inductor size, capacitor,
Short-circuit Current (Isc) 3.23 A
current/voltage ripples, and harmonic content. Open circuit voltage (VOC) 21 V
In this paper, a special structure called interleaved boost Temperature coefficient of ISC (0.065±0.015)%/°C
converter has been studied and analyzed to reduce the size and Temperature coefficient of VOC -(80±10) mV/°C
weight of the passive components, such as the inductor, Temperature coefficient of the power -(0.5±0.05)%/°C
capacitor, and input/output electromagnetic interference (EMI)
filter. Dual-loop control strategy based on TMS320F2812
DSP environment has been developed to implement the whole
control strategy multisource energy storage system with
vehicle dynamic. Simulation and experimental results are
provided.
II. PV SYSTEM MODEL

A. PV Model
The mathematical model associated with a cell is deduced
from that of a diode PN junction. It consists on the addition the
photovoltaic current Iph (which is proportional to the
illumination), and a term modeling the internal phenomena [7]. Figure 3. I-V family curves with proposed model for different irradiation
levels
The electrical equivalent circuit is shown in Fig.2.The cell
output current I, is then written:

§ q §¨© V + RS I nkT ·¹̧ ·

− I 0 ¨¨ e − 1¸¸
© ¹
I = I ph (1)

Where D represents the behavior of the cell in darkness, the

internal losses are modeled by serial resistances Rs.

n: Diode ideality factor.

I0 : Diode reverses saturation current (A).
V: Output voltage of PV cell (V).
T: Cell Temperature in Kelvin.
q: The elementary charge constant.
Figure 4. P-V family curves with proposed model for different irradiation
k: The Boltzmann constant. levels

For lighting conditions and temperature data, the
 + characteristics of current-voltage and power-voltage P = f (V)
show an operating point at maximum power.
 D iload


-
D1 D2  ic
Figure 2. PV cell equivalent circuit  iL2 L2
The SCA module BP Solar SX 50 [8] is selected like

Load

model of simulation under MATLAB/Simulink. ¶It belongs to iL1 L1 C VLoad

the series of module SX™ of BP Solar. ¶Tab.1 summarizes its
standard electric characteristics:¶ Vin

T1 T2


Figure 5. Two cell interleaved boost converter

 The photocurrent is nearly proportional to the light or
luminous flux (G). The following figures (Fig. 3 and Fig. 4)
show the influence of illumination on the current and power.
The photocurrent created in a photocell is proportional to the
surface S of the junction subjected to sunlight

B. Interleaved boost converter model

Solar cells have relatively low conversion efficiency and the
improvement of overall system efficiency is an important
design factor: in the area of PV systems. This can be partly
achieved by using high-efficiency intermediate converters with
maximum power point controllers (MPPT). The main
requirements of these converters are: (1) the converter input
current has small ripple and (2) the converter efficiency should
be high, even at lower intensity insolations. The intermediate Figure 6. Power tracking process
converter produces a chopped output dc voltage and controls
the average dc voltage applied to the load. iB ILoad
Further, the converter continuously matches the output
characteristic of the PV generator to the input characteristic of
the load, so that maximum power is extracted from the solar
cell arrays (SCA). Many different types of intermediate VB
VLink
converters with maximum power point tracking controllers for
PV systems have been proposed [9]. Simple converters such as
buck and boost converters enter into discontinuous current
mode at lower intensity insolations, resulting in improper PWM
utilization of power devices and increased conduction losses
due to increased current ripple. To reduce the input current +
PI PI
ripple and Lo alleviate the problem of discontinuous input +
current, we propose to use two cell interleaved boost converter
for PV applications. Although this converter increases the
number of components compared to conventional boost Figure 7. Bidirectional battery charger/discharger converter.
converter, the actual increase in cost may not be significant.
Further, interleaved operation has many desirable features such
III. SIMULATION ¶RESULTS
as a lower value of ripple amplitude, high ripple frequency in
the resulting input and output waveforms, it reduces In order to simulate the system and to test the validity of
maintenance and increases reliability and fault tolerance. the approach proposed, the MATLAB-Simulink software was
The P&O-MPPT is applied to PV systems to extract selected. The load is modeled by a variable resistance, the
maximum available power from the SCAs at all insolations. temperature is supposed to be constant (T=25 °C) and the
Different methods of peak power tracking schemes have been illumination received by the panel has the profile presented on
proposed by using different control strategies [9]. The the Figure 8. These fast variations of illumination do not
Perturbation and Observation (P&O) method is a widely used represent the real case (the illumination varies generally much
approach to MPPT. As the name of the P&O method states, less brutally), but that allow to observe the evolution of
this process works by perturbing the system by increasing or algorithm MPPT in the most critical case.
decreasing the array operating voltage and observing its impact Under given conditions, we can see that the SCA power
on the array output power (Fig. 6). It employs a microprocessor follows the point of maximum power (Fig. 9). The maximum
with the values for panel voltage V and output panel current I power point control algorithm changes the duty ratio of the
as its input values and the desired operating voltage Vref as its converter appropriately, so as to reach the MPP. Further, the
output value. algorithm tracks the MPP continuously by adjusting the
C. Converter linked to the battery converter duty ratio such that the load power is maximum.
With this algorithm the operating voltage V is perturbed with
The battery charger/discharger system is composed by a every MPPT cycle. As soon as the MPP is reached, the
bidirectional (BD) converter as shown in Figure 7. This operating voltage will oscillate around Vmpp. This causes a
converter operates in two modes: (i) buck mode, charging the power loss which depends on the perturbation step width.
batteries; and (ii) boost mode, discharging the batteries. This
converter is also responsible for the dc bus voltage regulation
according to the power produced and demands [8].
 30

1 25
Illuminationt (W / m )
2

0.8
20

Vdc(V)
0.6
15

0.4
10

0.2
5

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
0
Time (s) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Time (s)
Figure 8. Illumination Profile
Figure 11. Dc bus regulation
60

50
80
P V Po w e r
40 70
B atte ry Po w er
Power (W)

R e q ui r ed Po w er
60

30
50

Power (W)
40
20
30

10 20

10

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 0

Voltage (V) -10

-20
0 0 .5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3 .5 4 4.5 5
Figure 9. MPPT response on the interval [3, 8] s Time (s)

Figure 12. Power characteristics of a PV array under variable load

70

60
PV Power
50 Battery Power 35
40 Required Power
30
Power (W)

30

20 25
10
20
Vdc(V)

-10 15
-20
10
-30
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Time (s)
5

Figure 10. Powers evolution for a variable illumination 0

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Time (s)

According to the scenario selected, we can also observe the

Figure 13. dc bus regulation
powers delivered by the different elements linked to dc bus
(Fig. 10).
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Two scenarios appear:
• Supply the load and charge the battery by the PV There are some drawbacks of field testing with real
panels if the power of the SCA exceeds the power photovoltaic modules, such as costly, heavy dependence on
required by the load. weather condition and time consuming. PV emulator can
emulate the current-voltage output characteristics of PV arrays
• Supply the load by PV panels and the battery if the under different temperature and solar irradiation; therefore it is
power of the panel is insufficient. a good substitute to help test maximum power point trackers
of PV system in laboratory regardless of actual weather or
The dc bus voltage is maintained constant by the control temperature conditions.
system regulation (Fig.11).
There are several methods to implement PV emulator by
This same reasoning can be applied for a variable load, and analog or digital technology, including: (i) amplifying the
a constant illumination. The sum of the powers provided by output of current and voltage of a PV cell or a photo diode; (ii)
the battery and the panel always equalizes with the power constructing a PV cell equivalent circuit with constant current
source and diode-resistor network; (iii) using a switched-
required by the load as shown on Fig. 10. The dc bus voltage
module power converter controlled by digital chips or analog
is always maintained constant (Fig.11).
circuit to fill the current-voltage output characteristics of PV
arrays. The third method has been reported mostly in recent
years because of digital technology development and its The digitally controlled MPPT technique (P&O) was first
advantage in rapid system prototyping [9]. tested with changing illumination levels .As can be seen on
Fig. 16 and Fig. 17, the algorithm tracks the MPP
As shown on Figure 14, a DSP-controlled PV emulator
consists of a step-down dc-dc power converter. It simulates continuously. With resistive load variation (Fig. 18 and 19),
the current-voltage characteristics of the PV arrays under the operating point returns always to the maximum power
different temperature and solar irradiation. The mathematic point.
modeling of the I-V curve of PV arrays is investigated and a
control strategy is put forward for the PV emulator. A 50W
prototype (BP Solar SX50) has been built and tested. The
experiment results (Fig. 15) show that the PV emulator could
shift smoothly on its characteristic I-V curve, which is suitable
for further experiments of maximum power point tracking in
the PV system.

Figure 16. Variation of the illumination from 500W/m2 to 1000W/m2

C

PWM

Figure 14. Hardware prototype of PV emulator.

Figure 17. Variation of the illumination from 1000W/m2 to 700W/m2

Figure 15. Operation Points of PV emulator.

The proto-type hardware built consists of:

• A photovoltaic emulator modeling the panel BP solar
SX 50. Figure 18. Decreasing the resistive load

• An interleaved boost converter connected to PV

emulator (f = 10 kHz, L1= L2= 1.5 mH, C = 288 µF). The Figure 20, 21, and 22 illustrates the dc bus voltage and
• A Lead-Acid battery of 12V with a capacity of 12Àh. the battery current when changing illumination or for various
value of resistive load.
• Bidirectional battery charger/discharger converter (f =
10 kHz, L= 2.6 mH).
• A variable resistor simulating the load.
• The control board mainly consists of a
TMS320LF2812 DSP.
 Figure 19. increasing the resistive load
Figure 22. Load variation
2
When the illumination is reduced from 1000 W/m to 500
W/m2, the power produced decreases. Consequently, the dc V. CONCLUSIONS
bus level decreases due to the require power, illustrated in the  In this paper, a new power supply system was developed
Figure 20. This way, the control of the bi-directional converter to utilize solar photovoltaic (PV) power and mains from a
interrupts the charge process of the batteries, and begins the utility power supply to feed the dc outputs and charge the
discharge procedure (positive current on the batteries) in order back-up battery. Charging of the battery is carried out during
to regulate the dc bus voltage. When the illumination varied the daylight when there is appreciable radiation intensity or
from 500 to 1000W/m2 ,the dc bus level increases as can be whenever there is a supply from the utility power source.
observed in Figure 21, the control of the bi-directional
converter interrupts the discharge process of the batteries, and Simulation of the whole system is also given. This result
begins the charge procedure (negative current on the batteries) gives good functioning and a correctly attempt objectives. An
in order to regulate the dc bus voltage. For a constant energy assessment is also presented for different flows of
illumination, the load resistance has been manually changed energies. To validate the present work, experimentations have
(see Fig. 22) and we can see that the controlled dc bus voltage been carried out by authors and exhibit good performances
remains at the desired value. If the current delivered by the even in the presence of load parameter variation and changing
SCA is insufficient, the battery provides the required power. illumination for the photovoltaic panel.
VI. REFERENCES

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Figure 20. Variation of the illumination from 1000W/m2 to 500W/m2 [4] W. Li and X. He, ‘‘Review of nonisolated high-step-up DC/DC
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Figure 21. Variation of the illumination from 500W/m2 to 1000W/m2