FUZZY BASED INTELLIGENT MPPT CONTROLLER FOR SOLAR BASED TRACTION APPLICATIONS

Abstract

The need to employ non-conventional sources for generation of electric energy, such as solar photovoltaic (PV), has been emphasized as the demand for electricity has increased. Solar PV modules convert solar energy directly into electrical energy. With the increase in applications of electric traction in modern day life, the energy consumption of traction can be reduced using PV systems by employing PV modules on the surface of the traction units. In the case of a PV module, for a given atmospheric condition, neglecting partial shading conditions, there is only one single point where maximum power can be extracted, known as the Maximum Power Point (MPP), which must be tracked. Many ways of achieving the maximum power that PV modules can produce under various weather conditions are available in the literature. The present work discusses an intelligent approach for maximum power point tracking based on a fuzzy logic (FL) controller. This has been compared with incremental conductance (IC) based MPP tracking controller. MATLAB Simulink models of both the controllers have been designed and the system performance has been analysed for different weather conditions and motor torque levels. The results show that FL based controller offers less settling time for output voltage and power when compared to IC based controller.

Keywords

• photo voltaic (pv) array
• fuzzy logic controller
• incremental conductance
• boost converter
• matlab simulink