European Journal of Scientific Research ISSN 1450-216X Vol.41 No.1 (2010), pp.38-47 EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2010 http://www.eurojournals.com/ejsr.

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Development of a Microcontroller-Based Boost Converter for Photovoltaic System

Syafrudin Masri School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia 14300 Nibong Tebal, Seberang Prai Selatan, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia E-mail: syaf@eng.usm.my Tel: +60(12) 5312295 Pui-Weng Chan School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia 14300 Nibong Tebal, Seberang Prai Selatan, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia E-mail: edmond_chan85@hotmail.com Tel: +60(12) 5335719 Abstract This work introduces an approach to design a boost converter for photovoltaic (PV) system using microcontroller. The converter is designed to step up solar panel voltage to a stable 24V output without storage elements such as battery. It is controlled by a microcontroller unit using voltage-feedback technique. The output of the boost converter is track and measure continuously and the values are sent to the microcontroller unit to produce pulse-width-modulation (PWM) signal. The PWM signal is used to control the duty cycle of the boost converter. Typical application of this boost converter is to provide DC power supply for inverter either for grid-connected or standalone system. Simulation and experimental results describe the performance of the proposed design. Microcontroller PIC16F877 is used to perform tasks in the proposed design. Keywords: Boost converter, modulation. Microcontroller, Photovoltaic system, Pulse-width-

1. Introduction
In recent years, attention towards renewable energy such as wind and solar power has increased dramatically. As more people are concerned with the power generation using fossil fuel which brings environmental problems, societies and conferences are being held to find solutions to slow down the world climate change caused by power generation. Photovoltaic (PV) sources are used today in many applications such as satellite power systems, battery charging, home appliances and many more. PV is becoming more famous in the world of power generation because they have the advantages of free pollution, low maintenance, and no noise and wear due to the absence of moving parts. The power produced by solar panel depends on two factors which are irradiation and temperature (Koutroulis et al., 2001). As irradiation and temperature level changes rapidly, the voltage produced fluctuates and becomes inconstant. A converter is therefore implemented to produce a

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constant voltage and deliver maximum power from solar panel to load. A maximum power point tracker (MPPT) is a system that directs the converter to track the maximum power of a solar panel and deliver it to load (Johan et al., 1997). MPPT is not a mechanical tracking system that moves the solar panel to point more directly to the sun but it is an electronic system that varies the electrical operating point so that it will deliver a maximum output power. Within this context, this work presents the design of a converter using high efficiency boost converter operating in continuous conduction mode (CCM). It is implemented with a control technique based on voltage-feedback control. In this design, the proposed control algorithm will be much simple compared to other MPPT control algorithms such as Perturbation and Observation (P&O) and Incremental Conductance (InCond). Voltage-feedback control algorithm is implemented using PIC16F877 microcontroller. It continuously tracks the output voltage of the boost converter and sets a duty cycle of a pulse-width-modulation (PWM) signal for the boost converter as an output signal. As the output voltage changes, the duty cycle will change accordingly. Therefore, the converter will be able to provide a constant output voltage by using this control technique. As the converter produces constant output voltage, it can be coupled with other power conditioner unit and load. An example of application system is direct coupling with grid-tied inverter to produce an AC voltage and sending power into the utility grid as shown in Figure 1. In this application, the grid-tied inverter synchronizes and feed power into the grid whereas the boost converter is to step up and provide a constant voltage for the inverter. This grid connected system is characterized by the absence of storage elements, such as battery. The main reason of the absence of storage elements is because of their sizes and high maintenance fees. Therefore, the whole system is low cost and small size. Furthermore, the converter unit can be attached to the solar panel as a single product. The proposed system could be easily implemented with analog circuits instead of microcontroller, but the design above has the advantage of easy modification if additional renewable energy sources are used.
Figure 1: Block diagram of proposed system for PV grid connected

DC

DC

AC

Solar Panel

Microcontroller-based Boost Converter

Inverter Utility Grid

2. Characteristic of Solar Array

Solar cell consists of semiconductor materials which is able to convert solar irradiation into DC current using PV effect. The characteristic equation for solar panel is given by (Koutroulis et al., 2001)
V + IR s q (V + IR s ) 1 I = I LG I OS exp R sh AkT

(1)

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Syafrudin Masri and Pui-Weng Chan

where ILG is the light generated current, IOS is the reverse saturation current, q is the electronic charge, A is dimensionless factor, k is Boltzmann constant, T is the temperature in K, Rs is series resistance of the cell, and Rsh is the shunt resistance of the cell. The variation of the output I-V characteristic of a solar panel is shown in Figure 2. The maximum power point is located at the knee of the I-V output characteristic (Hohm et al., 2003). Figure 3 shows a typical output characteristic of a solar panel under different temperature and irradiation level.
Figure 2: Typical solar panel current-voltage and power-voltage characteristic

Output Current

Figure 3: Typical output characteristic of solar panel based on insulation and temperature changes
Irradiance (W/m ):IR1>IR2>IR3>IR4 0 Temperature ( C):T1>T2>T3
2

IR1 Output Current IR2 IR3 IR4 T1 T2 T3

Output Voltage

Output Power

Development of a Microcontroller-Based Boost Converter for Photovoltaic System

41

3. Boost Converter Analysis

A simple boost converter consists of an inductor, a switch, a diode, and a capacitor as shown in Figure 4 (Wu et al., 1998). Boost converter circuit can be divided into two modes. Mode 1 begins when the switch SW is turned on at t = Ton as shown in Figure 5. The input current which rises flows through inductor L and switch SW. During this mode, energy is stored in the inductor. Mode 2 begins when the switch is turned off at t = Toff. The current that was flowing through the switch would now flow through inductor L, diode D, capacitor C, and load R as shown in Figure 6. The inductor current falls until the switch is turned on again in the next cycle. Energy stored in the inductor is then transferred to the load. Therefore, the output voltage is greater than the input voltage and is expressed as (Mohan et al., 2003) (2) where Vout is the output voltage, k is duty cycle, and Vin is input voltage which in this case will be the solar panel voltage.
Figure 4: Circuit diagram of boost converter

Vout =

1 Vin 1 k

Figure 5: Mode 1-Circuit diagram of boost converter during Ton

Figure 6: Mode 2-Circuit diagram of boost converter during Toff

In order to operate the converter in continuous conduction mode (CCM), the inductance is calculated such that the inductor current IL flows continuously and never falls to zero as shown in Figure 7. Thus, L is given by (Mohan et al., 2003) (1 k )2 kR L min = 2f (3)

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Syafrudin Masri and Pui-Weng Chan

where Lmin is the minimum inductance, k is duty cycle, R is output resistance, and f is the switching frequency of switch SW.
Figure 7: Waveforms for boost converter operating under CCM
Switch State

Ton ON

T off OFF t

Vout

Voltage

t VL Imax

Current

Iavg Imin

IL

t kT T

The output capacitance to give the desired output voltage ripple is given by (Mohan et al., 2003)

C min =

(4) where Cmin is the minimum capacitance, k is duty cycle, R is output resistance, f is switching frequency of switch SW, and Vr is output voltage ripple factor. Vr can be expressed as (Mohan et al., 2003) V out Vr = V out (5)

k R fVr

4. Control Approach
A simple control technique is proposed in this paper. It uses voltage-feedback control technique where the output voltage of the boost converter is tracked continuously and compared with a reference voltage. The voltage difference is then used as a parameter for the microcontroller to produce a PWM signal with a set of duty cycle. PWM signal is used to control the switch SW in the boost converter. Figure 8 shows the flow chart of the voltage-feedback control technique whereas Figure 9 shows the tracking process of the desired constant output voltage. With this control technique, any changes of the solar panel voltage will produce a constant output voltage at the end of the converter.

Development of a Microcontroller-Based Boost Converter for Photovoltaic System

Figure 8: Control flow chart
Start

43

Output pulse (PWM)

Read feedback value, Vout

Yes

Feedback = desired value?

No
Feedback > desired value? Yes No

Reduce duty cycle

Increase duty cycle

Figure 9: Output voltage tracking process

Output Voltage

24V

possible starting points

Duty Cycle

5. Proposed System
As mentioned earlier, the proposed boost converter is implemented in between a solar panel and load as shown in Figure 10. This system is able to deliver power with a constant output voltage of 24V without storage elements such as battery. Therefore, the converter is small and light weight. In addition to that, the system is able to attach directly to the solar panel as a single unit.

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Syafrudin Masri and Pui-Weng Chan

Figure 10: Circuit diagram of the proposed system

Figure 10 shows that power stage included switch SW where it may consists of one or more parallel connected power MOSFET, a fast switching type flyback diode D, an inductor L wound on ferrite core with air gap to prevent core saturation, and output capacitor C. The controlling stage consists of a PIC16F877 microcontroller with built-in analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a power MOSFET driver, and a voltage divider. The control strategy based on the flow chart in Figure 8 will be written and load into the microcontroller. Voltage divider resistors R1 and R2 will divide the output voltage to a suitable voltage range which is acceptable by the built-in ADC in the microcontroller. PIC16F877 will then perform calculation based on the control algorithm and produce a PWM signal with a set of duty cycle. The frequency of the PWM is programmable by PIC16F877. The PWM signal is then transmitted to power MOSFET in power stage through a power MOSFET driver to perform on and off state. The PIC16F877 microcontroller unit features an eight-bit, successive approximation ADC, used by the control program to measure signals required for the power flow control. The 10-bit resolution is adequate for the proposed design. Also, it features two PWM outputs with program-controlled duty cycle and 208.3 kHz maximum frequency when driven by the 20 MHz clock of the unit. The first PWM output is used to control switch SW in boost converter while the second PWM output can be used to control switch in auxiliary circuit such as zero voltage switching circuit and zero current switching circuit to reduce switching losses in boost converter. This type of microcontroller was chosen because it has the necessary features for the proposed design such as built-in ADC, PWM outputs, eight-bit architecture, high clock rate, low power consumption and low cost. In order to calculate the value for Lmin and Cmin, the switching frequency will be set to the lowest value of 20 kHz. The rating of the proposed converter will be 100W and 24V output. By referring to (3), Lmin maximum will occur at k = 0.333 and the calculated value will be 2.1 mH. As the desired output voltage ripple factor is below 1%, the calculated value of Cmin will be 687F. PIC16F877 microcontroller uses 5V as its reference voltage for the ADC. Therefore, the ADC should sense less than 5V from the voltage divider. The converter switching frequency and the inductance value is compromised between the converters efficiency, cost, power capability and weight. For the control system, PIC16F877 microcontroller will produce a PWM signal pulse train with varying duty cycle in the range of 0 to 1.0. Practically, duty cycle for boost converter is only in the range of 0 to 0.75. This is due to instability of boost converter (Mahmood et al., 2008). Therefore, the range of the input voltage for the boost converter is in the range of 6V and 24V. If the voltage detected is not within the range, PIC16F877 microcontroller will put the whole system into sleep mode. In order to control the duty cycle, voltage divider divides the output voltage of 24V to PIC reference voltage of 5V because ADC in PIC16F877 microcontroller is unable to operate under high voltage. The resistance of R1 and R2 should be high enough in order not to produce high power losses, I2R and affect the overall converter performance. Furthermore, as the reference voltage of PIC16F877 microcontroller is 5V, the PWM signal pulse train with the amplitude of 5V is unable to switch the power MOSFET on and off. Therefore, a current sink and source power MOSFET driver is needed to operate the power MOSFET as a switch working in the active region of its I-V characteristic.

Development of a Microcontroller-Based Boost Converter for Photovoltaic System

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6. Theoretical Results
Based on the proposed design, PSIM computer software is used to simulate the converters performance. The simulation results of the boost converter with different values of input voltage and duty cycle are shown in Figure 11 and Figure 12.
Figure 11: Simulation waveforms for output voltage, output current and inductor current at k = 0.25

Vout

IL Iout

Figure 12: Simulation waveforms for output voltage, output current and inductor current at k = 0.75

Vout IL

Iout

From the simulation results, the proposed converter is able to give a constant DC output voltage. The transient response is occurred a few milliseconds before it reach steady-state. Transient response is able to be dampening by installing a damping circuit such as snubber circuit.

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Syafrudin Masri and Pui-Weng Chan

7. Experimental Results
Experimental measurements are being carried out in order to verify the performance of the boost converter proposed in this paper. A power supply representing solar panels is connected to Vin and a load resistance is connected to Vout as shown in Figure 10. Figure 13 shows the experimental results.
Figure 13: Oscilloscope Vout output voltage waveform and PWM signal from PIC16F877

Vout

PWM

Figure 13 shows that the proposed design is able to produce a stable 24V output voltage using PWM signal generated by PIC16F877 microcontroller. The efficiency of the system, n can be calculated as

Pout (6) Pin where Pin is converter input power and Pout is output power. The power losses of the converter consists of power MOSFET and switching losses, diode conduction loss, inductor core and copper losses, and the control system power consumption. n=

8. Conclusion
From the proposed design, the boost converter is able to produce a constant output voltage of 24V from an inconstant solar panel voltage by using PIC16F877 microcontroller. Microcontroller-based converter is chosen because it permits easy system modifications. The converter is simple, lightweight and small in size. Therefore, it can be attach to the solar panel as a single unit. For future works, the constant voltage of the boost converter will be coupled directly with grid-tied inverter to supply power to local utility grid. It can also be used as power source for home appliances or standalone system. Furthermore, the proposed boost converter can also be designed and implemented using analog circuits but it needs more components and parts compared to microcontroller-based.

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47

9. Acknowledgement
The authors wish to thank School of Electrical and Electronic, University Science Malaysia for providing laboratory and equipments to support this work. This work is funded in part by the USM Fellowship Incentive Grant/RCMO with grant number 1001.PELECT.8021040.

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