An Efficient Soft Switching Buck Converter Scheme For Charging Lead Acid Battery From PV Source
An Efficient Soft Switching Buck Converter Scheme For Charging Lead Acid Battery From PV Source
An Efficient Soft Switching Buck Converter Scheme For Charging Lead Acid Battery From PV Source
1
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai
625015, Tamilnadu, India. Email : vseetharaman@tce.edu
2
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai
625015, Tamilnadu, India. Email: psmeee@tce.edu
In this paper a high efficiency soft switched two channel interleaved buck converter scheme for charging the lead
acid battery bank is presented. The scheme uses the incremental conductance (INC) maximum power point tracking. An
internal model control system (IMC) is used for controlling the charging of the battery in constant current mode, constant
voltage mode and the trickle mode depending upon the state of charge (SOC) of the battery. The various sub systems of
simulation and the results are presented. The simulation results are validated by experimentally a 125 Watts PV panel
unit and a 36 AH lead acid battery. The real time experiment is performed under Madurai city climatic condition which is
located in Tamil Nadu state in India. The result of the proposed system has been compared against P&O MPPT scheme.
The results of both simulation and the experimental reveal that the proposed soft switched, internal model controller
incorporated INC scheme of MPPT offers more close tracking of the PV power and is more efficient.
NOMENCLATURE
V Input source voltage of the converter
I Pole current
CS Source capacitor
S1 Main switch
Lr Resonance inductor
Cr Resonance capacitor
Dr Resonance diode
Cc Clamping capacitor
S2 Auxiliary switch
PV Photovoltaic
TF Transfer function
PI Proportional integral
I. INTRODUCTION
Of all the renewable energy sources available the photo voltaic energy is the most attractive because of its advantages.
The photo voltaic electric power generation system is an eco friendly system1. Despite the abundance of the solar power
during the day time the photo voltaic power generation system comes to a standstill during the period between the Sun
set and sun rise2. Therefore, a maximum power point tracking intelligence is applied from the PV arrays to generate the
electrical energy3,4. The PV systems have high production cost and low energy conversion efficiency due to their non-
linear and environment dependent power to voltage (P–V) and current to voltage (I–V) characteristic5. Therefore, the
maximum power output varies with the incident solar irradiation and weather climatic conditions like ambient
temperature. Moreover, the study location of the maximum operating point on the P–V and I–V characteristic of any PV
panels could not be easily located6. Therefore, it must be determined by either some calculation models or search
algorithms. There are many algorithms to track the maximum power. The Perturb and Observe (P&O) and the
Incremental Conductance (INC) methods are the two basic algorithms used for MPPT7.
In actual practice, the tracking performance of MPPT should be very fast to deal with the fast changes in atmospheric
conditions. To maximize the power transfer from the PV array to the battery bank, charge controller incorporation with
soft switching techniques should be employed. It performs two main functions8. The first one is accurately track the
maximum operating point of PV arrays. The other function is to minimize the battery charging time. Furthermore, it
should protect the battery from over-charging and under discharging9. The most universal strategy for charge controllers
are the shunt, series, pulse width modulation (PWM) and MPPT charge controllers10. The authors demonstrated a
practical buck converter for PV system into energy storage application based on constant voltage (CV) MPPT algorithm.
A method for extracting maximum power from a PV panel to charge the battery was introduced in6. The utilization of
this MPPT charge controllers can maximize the output power of solar panels instead of more investment on solar PV
panels11. An efficient MPPT solar charge controller was developed to increase the efficiency of power transfer in
comparison to systems with direct connection. The present study provides the modeling and implementation of high
efficiency soft switched two channel interleaved buck converter scheme for charging the lead acid battery bank12.
The new controller utilizes an internal model control system is used for controlling the charging of the battery in
constant current mode, constant voltage mode and the trickle mode depending upon the state of charge (SOC) of the
battery. The proposed interleaving technique also reduces the ripple in the battery charging current as compared to the
conventional chargers. Finally, it is followed by practical implementation of a new charge controller that keeps on the
good features and resolves the limitations and draw backs of the traditional controllers.
A. Block diagram
The block diagram of the proposed PV battery charger system is shown in FIG. 1. This PV system consists of five major
parts: (a) PV panel, (b) buck converter I, (c) incremental conductance (INC) maximum power point tracking, (d) buck
A soft switching buck converter is known as a switch-mode dc-dc converter that uses switches and a low pass filter to
reduce the voltage value of a DC supply. However, the efficiency of the conventional converter is very low due to the
power loss of the snubber circuit1. The example of a buck converter with active clamp is shown in FIG. 2.
3
FIG. 2. Circuit diagram of Active clamped network.
A. PV panel Characteristics
With reference to the characteristics of the PV panel that relates voltage across the panel and the power delivered P-V
characteristics shown in FIG. 4 it is clear that there is single peak point of power occurring at the P when the voltage
across the panel is at voltage V . On to the left of this point the power delivered falls with decrease in voltage and to the
right of this point also the power delivered falls but with rise in voltage. Therefore the rate of change of power or the
gradient of power with respect to voltage is in the positive direction on to the left of the maximum power point P max and
this measure is negative on the ride side of this point Pmax . At the point of maximum power the gradient of power with
respect to voltage is zero. The voltage to be maintained across the terminals of the PV panel for maximum harvesting of
power is to be necessarily identified and maintained to get maximum power harvest. FIG. 3 shows V-I characteristics the
maximum power is harvested when the operating point is at the knee point P . On to the left of this point P the
conductance is high and rate of change of conductance is very low. On to the right of the point P the conductance is low
(b)
(a) (b)
FIG. 4 shows the flowchart of incremental conductance MPPT algorithm thus finds the appropriate Vref pertaining to the
changes in insolation that has to be maintained across the terminals of the PV panel so as to track the maximum power
point. This Vref as obtained from the INC algorithm can be maintained by using ant traditional controller like the PI
controller or more intelligent controllers like the Fuzzy Logic Controller. As a variant of the INC scheme instead of
finding the Vref and then maintaining it by some other control scheme the duty cycle is directly incremented or
(P2 P1)
decremented depending upon the direction of the variable grad = .The Perturb & observe (P&O) MPPT
(V2 V1)
Battery charging is a process in which the discharged battery is rejuvenated with fresh charge and the battery is restored
to the state of fully charged condition. This is carried out by connecting the battery across DC potential and an
appropriate charging current is passed on through the battery while this current is to be adjusted according to the State Of
5
FIG. 5.Battery discharging characteristics
FIG. 5 shows the discharging characteristics of a battery that is initially at a fully discharged condition and gradually gets
charged to the fully charged state. There are three phases of battery charging. The first one is the constant current
charging phase and during this phase the voltage across the battery rises gradually to a higher level. During the second
phase the battery is charged with constant voltage and during this phase the charging current gradually falls down
towards a minimum current that will flow through the battery at the end of this phase. The third phase is the trickle
charge phase.
Discharge cycle,
Charge cycle,
The Internal model controller (IMC) is a control technique in which the mathematical model of the plant under control,
the inverse model of the plant under control and the plant under control are involved. The configuration of the IMC is as
shown in FIG. 6. The inverse model of the plant and the model of the plant are cascaded as shown. The output of the
inverse model is the input for the plant model as well as the plant itself. The set value is applied as the input for the
inverse model and the inverse model gives an output corresponding to the input that is the set point now. For a given
excitation from the inverse model the plant gives the corresponding output. The plant model also gives an output. The
output of the plant model is the output that is required. The plant may not give this exact result. The difference between
the plant output and the output of the plant model is the error and this error is feedback to the input and is added with the
set point. The addition of this quantity with the set point at the input of the inverse model gives modified excitation to the
plant as well as the plant forward model and the plant output is now exactly the set point.
6
FIG.6.Internal Model Control (IMC) scheme
The plant forward model now gives an output that is different from the set point and this error is used along with the set
point at the input. For this purpose mathematical model of the plant as a transfer function and the inverse model are
required. The basic requirement for this type of control is that both the poles and the zeros of the plant model are on the
left half of the s plane. This is necessary because the if any of the zeros of the plant model lie on the right of the s plane
then the poles of the inverse model will lie on the right half of the s plane. That is the transfer function of the plant should
V. METHODOLOGY
A novel strategy is adopted in the control of the proposed converter. The function of the control scheme is to find out the
duty cycle that will guarantee the tracking of maximum power from the PV panel. The proposed strategy combines the
incremental conductance type of MPPT and a simple internal model control scheme. The duty cycle thus found will be
Step 1:
To start with, in MATLAB/SIMULINK simulation environment the insolation level is maintained at different levels
and for every insolation level an experiment is conducted. In each experiment the insolation and temperature are held
constant and only the duty cycle is varied in a slowly varying ramp. The corresponding terminal voltage that appears
across the PV panel for every duty cycle applied is noted down and thus a set of data is obtained. This data relates the
duty cycle applied to the converter with the battery load and the terminal voltage of the PV panel. With this data, the
transfer function relating the mapping between the PV terminal voltage and the duty cycle is obtained using MATLAB
‘tfest’ function. In the obtained transfer function the PV terminal voltage is treated as input and the corresponding duty
4 3 2
6.307e15s - 2.368e18s 4.402e26s 1.882e26s - 2.236e23 (3)
TF
4 3 2
115.17s 7.896e10s 5.308e11s 9.975e20s 3.529e21
7
The mapping between the duty cycle applied to the PWM section of the converters and the input voltage to the converter
(PV voltage) cannot be used just as a look up table because, although the PV voltage is the input voltage to the
converter. The relationship considered between the PV voltage and the duty cycle depends upon the frequency dependent
elements like inductors and capacitors including the electrical load present in the converter sub sections. The transfer
function embeds in itself the transient and the steady state relationship between the related quantities.
Step 2:
With reference to the block diagram, the MPPT module gets in the PV terminal voltage and the PV current as the
inputs and the voltage to be maintained at across the PV panel which is the reference voltage is supplied by the MPPT
Step 3:
The reference voltage as supplied by the MPPT module is applied to the internal model sub system and this sub system
gives the corresponding duty cycle that will be required to be applied to the PWM subsystem to generate the switching
The solar insolation is uniform over the surface of the PV panel, at all insolation levels.
The maximum power generation capacity of the PV panel is comparable to the nominal charging requirements
of the battery.
8
FIG. 8.PV modeling with INC MPPT
An experimental setup for the validation of the proposed system has been constructed. The circuit arrangement for the
experimental verification system is as shown in FIG. 10. The main control unit is built around microcontroller PIC
16F877A. The main function of this controller is to generate the PWM pulses, which drive switching function for the
converter. The power board includes the two channel interleaved buck converter. The components used for the proposed
buck converter are listed in TABLE III. The parameters monitored are the source voltage and the source current. The
source voltage and the source currents are used for the incremental conductance algorithm that is necessary for MPPT.
9
FIG. 10.Experimental arrangement of the proposed system
Parameters Range
Parameters Range
10
TABLE III. Values of the components
Components Specifications
Inductor 10mH
Switches IRF 540
Source side Capacitor 1000MFD/25V
Load side capacitor 2200MFD/25V
Diode IN5402
In this research the performance of an Internal Model Controller is studied and implemented in Hardware setup for
the forward and reverse transfer functions. Transfer functions can be implemented using operational amplifiers and the
required number of passive devices of appropriate values. However, with the increased order of the forward and reverse
transfer functions of the plant under consideration it becomes difficult for implementation with operational amplifiers
and a large number of passive components. Therefore in this research a novel scheme is used in which the MATLAB
The parameters required for making the decisions are fed to the MATLB SIMULINK work space and the decisions made
by MATLAB SIMULINK are taken over to the hardware setup in real time.
Switching Monitored
Pulses Current
The PIC microcontroller while supplying the PWM pulses for the converter gets the duty cycle from the MATLAB
SIMULINK environment running in the PC. The serial transmit and receive blocks available with MATLAB are used for
the purpose. The serial receive block, after due attenuation or scaling followed by an analog to digital conversion,
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receives the actual output voltage, of the physical plant. All control related manipulations are carried out in the
mathematical form inside the MATLAB environment and the duty cycle achieved by the internal model controller is sent
The serial port of the computer can be connected to the microcontroller through an RS 232 IC. The Tx and Rx terminals of
the microcontroller PIC 16F877A sends out the required data to the MATLAB and the data received from the PC is used
The MATLAB SIMULINK subsystem carrying the serial in and serial out blocks along with the serial port
configuration block. The serial out block sends data to the hardware and gets back the representation of the
controlled parameter after due signal processing as shown in FIG. 12. In the case of PIC based PWM generation the
PWM generator is initialized with the PWM frequency and this frequency is a constant and is not changeable when the
program is running. However the duty cycle is a variable and changed as the program is running and as per the decisions
made by the controller. In this research and specifically in the real time experimental verification we have the duty cycle
decided by the IMC in the MATLAB environment. The duty cycle as decided by the IMC is sent to the hardware unit
The only data required, other than the set value, in the case of a simple closed loop voltage regulation unit is the actual
output voltage or a scaled down representation of the output voltage. In the hardware arrangement, the output voltage to
be regulated is first scaled down by a resistive attenuator network and is attenuated from the 2 volts range down to a
convenient 2.4V range so that it is within the allowable limit to the PIC microcontroller.
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The attenuated along representation of the output voltage is digitized inside the microcontroller and is sent out of the PIC
microcontrollers through the TX pin and reaches the serial port of the PC through the MAX 232 IC. The appropriately
configured serial port in the MATLAB SIMULINK page receives this data and inserts this data in the appropriate point
of the control loop in the simulation. The IMC in the simulation uses this value to arrive at the required duty cycle. The
duty cycle leaves the MATLB SIMUINK environment to the PIC microcontroller through the serial port, sent out of the
MATLAB environment using the serial send block and at the PIC microcontroller this data is received at the serial
receive in and is used as the duty cycle in the PWM generation subroutine.
The frequency of PWM used was 20 kHz. The MATLAB SIMULINK page that hold the serial in and Serial out blocks
and the IMC is as shown in the FIG. 12. Hardware Setup for hardware inline operation with MATALB SIMULINK in
the LAPTOP through the serial port of the LAPTOP connected to the serial communication port provided in the
Closer tracking of PV power – by virtue of the proposed IMC associated INC MPPT scheme.
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The real time experiment is performed under Madurai climatic condition. Madurai city is located in Tamil Nadu state in
India. This area has latitude of 9° 88’ North and longitude of 78° 08’ East. This excrement is conducted under rooftop of
the Applied Electronics laboratory (outdoor condition) in the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at
Thiagarajar College of Engineering. The study location is comes under temperate climatic zone13. The annual average
solar radiation of study location is 5.605 kWh/m2/day and monthly average temperature ranges between 26°C and 37°C.
Hence the insolation at the time of real time experiment is to me measured as 900 W/m2 and temperature of 35°C.
FIG. 14, FIG. 15 and FIG. 16 correspond to the results of simulation in the MATLAB / SIMULINK environment. The
general power output characteristics of the PV panel used is given in FIG. 14. The recordings correspond to an insolation
of 900W/m2 at a temperature of 35oC. Although the panel is rated 125W because of the increased temperature the power
output has reduced to about 85.5W. For the PV power output of 85.5W the battery charging parameters are shown in
FIG. 15. The battery is charged at a terminal voltage of 11.92V the charging current is nearly 11.13A resulting in a power
Although FIG. 16 does not correspond to the condition shown in FIG. 14 and FIG. 15 it is the case of the battery current
with and without interleaving converter. With a single converter the ripple amplitude is well pronounced but the ripple
frequency is half that with the interleaved converter. Also the average DC current is slightly less in the case of the single
FIG. 8, FIG. 10 and from FIG. 18 to FIG. 22 correspond to the experimental verification. The hardware prototype is
shown in FIG. 18. The main switches IRF 540, the inductors, the opto couplers and the Microcontroller are visible from
the picture. In FIG. 10 the whole system is shown along with the batteries to be charged and the metering instruments. A
Hall Effect DC clamp meter is used for the measurement of the charging current. In the interleaved converter the two
power electronic switches are alternately turned on and off with phase shifted switching pulses. FIG. 20 corresponds to
the switching pulses for a duty cycle of 20% and FIG. 21 corresponds to a duty cycle of 40 %. If the duty cycle is
increased beyond 50% then overlap may occur and it has been avoided. PWM pulses are generated after comparing the
A comparison of the output power efficiency and the ripple factor and also the energy harvested over a period of two
hours with respect to in both the single channel and the interleaved cases as observed in MATLAB / SIMULINK
simulation and the experimental verification are summarized in the bar chart shown in FIG. 23, FIG. 24 and FIG. 25.
14
FIG. 14.Simulated waveforms of input PV FIG. 15.Simulated waveforms of battery output
15
The battery capacity is considered in the simulation is 36AH, 12V battery bank with rated current of 7.2A. The charging
and discharging voltage limits are very essential for safe functioning of battery banks. The depth of discharge (DOD) of
this battery is 80% considered in the simulation. The charging, discharging and lifespan characteristic was shown in FIG.
17.
16
(a) (b)
FIG. 22.(a) Ripples in the single channel converter and (b) Ripples in interleaved converter
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TABLE IV. System parameters at insolation of 900 W/m2
P&O
Parameters INC
For comparative analysis INC MPPT is compared with P&O. The P&O MPPT algorithm is implemented in buck
converter and the results are tabulated in Table IV. From the Table IV it is evident that INC outperforms P&O in terms of
VII. CONCLUSION
The soft switched interleaved two channel buck converter based battery charging unit powered by a PV panel has been
modeled and practically constructed and tested. The paper is developed an internal model controller for fast tracking of
the PV power along with the INC method of MPPT. The result of the proposed system has been compared against P&O
MPPT scheme. The results of both simulation and the experimental reveal that the proposed soft switched, internal model
controller incorporated incremental conductance scheme of MPPT offers more close tracking of the PV power and is
more efficient by virtue of soft switching and it utilizes the PV power with double utilization factor by virtue of the
interleaving technique as compared to the single buck converter. The improved efficiency of tracking performance of two
channel buck converter scheme offers 99.3% in simulation and 92.5% in real time experiment. The interleaving
technique also reduces the ripple in the battery charging current as compared to the single channel buck converter
scheme.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors acknowledge Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai, India for providing excellent resources and
laboratory facility for the research work. One of the authors, P.S. Manoharan, gratefully acknowledges the recognition
and financial aid received from University Grant Commission (UGC), Government of India for Research Award (RA-
2016-18-OB-TAM-7210).
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http://www.accuweather.com/en/in/madurai/206674/weather-forecast/206674
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