Direct Duty Cycle Control For MPPT Digital Implementation

An algorithm called Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) helps extract the maximum
available power from PV module depending on environmental conditions.
Aug 25, 2014Arpita Agarwal, Senior Application Engineer, Ankur Kala, Senior Application Engineer, and
Mohammad Kamil, Lead Application Engineer, Freescale | Power Electronics
Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) extracts the maximum available power from photovoltaic (PV) module
depending on solar radiation, ambient temperature and solar cell temperature. MPPT based solar charge
controller implements an algorithm that maximizes the amount of PV module current applied to the battery.
What is in this article?:
Direct Duty Cycle Control For MPPT Digital Implementation

Solar photovoltaic (SPV) systems are employed in applications ranging from simple battery
charging to complex grid-connected solar inverters. Maximum Power Point Tracking
(MPPT) is an algorithm used in solar applications for extracting the maximum available
power from PV module depending on environmental conditions. Maximum power varies
with solar radiation, ambient temperature and solar cell temperature. The voltage at which
PV module can produce maximum power is called 'maximum power point' (or peak power
voltage). A solar charge controller embedded with the MPPT algorithm maximizes the
amount of current going into the battery from the PV module. A low cost 8-bit
microcontroller (MCU) can be used to implement a digital MPPT charge controller. Fig.
1 shows a block diagram of an SPV battery charging with MPPT.


Fig. 1 Battery charging system utilizing maximum power point control


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The most common topology used to implement MPPT algorithm is Perturb & Observe
(P&O). In this method the system perturbs in a certain direction, measures voltage and
current, calculates Power and compares it with the last measured value. If the Power
increases, the system continues to perturb in the same direction or else it perturbs in the
reverse direction. The amount of perturb or disturbance introduced can be controlled by
implementing a closed loop control. It is also referred to as the hill climbing method,
because it depends on the rise and fall of the curve of Power against voltage across the MPP.
This is the simplest MPPT algorithm to implement. Fig. 2 shows an SPV characteristic
curve. The MPP voltage at any instant can be higher or lower from that given (by the SPV
manufacturer). Therefore, control output that decides the operating point should be a
signed number so that it can move forward or backward from the operating point.

Fig. 2 Solar photovoltaic system characteristics showing the maximum power point
Challenges Of Implementing MPPT
The challenges with the MPPT charge controller are to operate the converter steadily,
regardless of SPV conditions, load changes, and noise in system. A buck or boost converter
is used to implement digital MPPT charge controller. SPV voltage and current as well as
battery voltage and current are monitored using an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to
implement the MPPT and to follow the batterys charging profile. The sense feedback
signals are then processed by an MCU core to calculate next PWM switching tON time. The
PWM module generates the required PWM pattern for a given converter. ADC resolution,
PWM resolution and core data calculation resolution play an important role in its steadiness
of operation.
Operating an 8-bit MCU at 8 MHz reduces MCU power consumption, however, limiting the
PWM input clock to a maximum of 8 MHz. Therefore, for 30 kHz operation the maximum
digital number of PWM would be ~266, or 9 bits. A general ADC may support 8-bit, 10-bit,
or 12-bit resolution. With 9-bit PWM resolution, maximum 10-bit ADC resolution can be
selected, as higher resolution may not be any advantage. Choosing a high resolution ADC
will increase conversion time. The control loop output should be a signed number so the
control loop calculation should be in a signed mode. To keep the number resolution intact, it
should be in an 8-bit fraction mode. The 8-bit fraction mode calculation allows maximum
control loop output to be a digital number swing of -128 to +127. The modulus of maximum
control loop output represents the maximum duty cycle, so it should be either equal to or
more than PWM period value to get maximum resolution for the number of calculations in
the control loop. A Proportional-Integration (PI) control loop compensation block would
also have its own math resolution, and for any given hardware and control loop
performance, it is very tough to find a PI coefficient that can produce zero or one error at
the input of compensation block. Because of all of the above mentioned limitations, the
minimum duty step variation can go up to 2-3% duty cycle, thus the output would always be
unstable across a given reference point with conventional digital PI swing controller
implementation.
Direct Drive


Fig. 3 Direct duty cycle control of the switching MOSFET controls the charging current

Direct duty cycle control is the simplest and most effective way to implement the MPPT
algorithm in an 8-bit MCU where even 1-2 bits LSB error in math calculation can impact the
system. Direct duty cycle control controls the duty cycle from the error produced by
reference and actual value sensed by the controller. The output battery charging current is
sensed by the ADC and is compared with reference current generated by maximum power
point algorithm. Photovoltaic voltage and current are sensed to implement the MPPT
algorithm, so the output of the MPPT algorithm represents a current reference for control of
the charging current. The error (reference - measured) determines the duty cycle of the
switching MOSFET to control the charging current, as shown in Fig. 3. Based on the error
sign, the duty cycle either increases or decreases. As duty cycle directly controls the system,
no multiplications or divisions are required, and the duty cycle can be controlled in the
order of single LSB, without any error. This allows control of PWM duty cycle with
maximum possible resolution, which produces stable operation even with dynamic load.
Consider a scenario where the inverter is running from battery and drawing highly non-
linear current. In this case, rapid changes in the charging current are observed and thus
MPP keeps on oscillating.
With this MPPT mechanism, you can obtain stable operation around MPP, resulting in
higher efficiency of MPPT in the system. Thus, this algorithm enables a tight control over
rapidly changing system conditions.