A Cuckoo Search Algorithm Based Optimized FLC for Maximum Power Point

Tracking for stand-alone photovoltaic systems, under uniform insolation and partial
shading conditions

M. Djaouanea*, A. Mellitb and A. Guessoumc

a
Nuclear Research Center of Birine, Ain-Oussera, P.O. Box 180, 17200 Djelfa, Algeria
b
Faculty of Sciences and Technology, Renewable Energy Laboratory Jijel University, Ouled-aissa,
P.O. Box 98, Jijel 18000, Algeria
Department of Electronics, Faculty of sciences Engineering, Blida University, Blida 90000,
c

Algeria

Abstract
In this work, a new method for tracking the maximum power point of a stand-alone photovoltaic
system has been designed and simulated. The method is containing new Cuckoo search
metaheuristic algorithm capable to simultaneously find a near optimum design of the membership
functions and control rules of a Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC). The simulation results indicate that
the proposed method outperforms the conventional FLC based MPPT and differential evolution
methods in terms of both tracking speed and accuracy, under both uniform insolation and partially
shading conditions.

Keywords: Photovoltaic, Maximum Power Point Tracking, Cuckoo Search, Fuzzy logic,
Differential Evolution.

*
Corresponding author: E-mail: djaouane_mil@yahoo.fr (M. Djaouane)
 1. Introduction
According to the large majority of the scientists, climate warming is largely allotted to an additional
greenhouse effect due to the rejections of gas and mainly of the CO2 emissions, whose
concentration strongly increased these last decades. This increase is certainly due to the combustion
of fossil energies such as coal, natural gas, oil, and the emissions pollutant resulting from the
industrialists and transport as well as destruction of the large equatorial forests.
Renewable energy can be used to seriously face this climate changes in progress on our planet and
worldwide, renewable power capacity today constitutes 30% of installed power capacity. Among
the various renewable energy resources, solar energy made spectacular great strides in the word [1],
by looking at the tendencies of the energy market, the researchers provide that the supply of
electrical energy coming from the sun (photovoltaic) will become more advantageous compared to
the use of fossil fuels, all that before 2025 [2].
The current-voltage (I-V) and power-voltage (P-V) characteristics of a solar cell are nonlinear
functions that vary with the solar irradiance and the cell temperature, imposing constraints on solar
power generations. There is a unique point of the (P-V) characteristic, named Maximum Power
Point (MPP), where the produced power is maximal. Therefore, to extract the maximum power
from a (PV) device (i.e modules, strings, arrays, fields) and to enhance the operating efficiency of
the solar photovoltaic system, PV systems usually implement a controller named Maximum Power
Point Tracker (MPPT). This latter is often a DC/DC converter connecting the PV device to the load
[3-5].
Nowadays, numerous MPPT algorithms have been proposed. Among these, the most popular
are the Hill Climbing (HC), the perturb and observe (P&O) [6,7], the Incremental Conductance (In-
Cond) [8,9], the ripple correlation, and the short circuit-current and open-circuit voltage approaches
[10,11]. Other existing algorithms include artificial intelligent based techniques such as fuzzy Logic
[12-15] and artificial neural [16-18]. MPPTs based on Fuzzy Logic Controllers (FLC) are robust
and simple. Furthermore, these techniques can be applied without knowing the exact model of the
controlled system [19]. For these reasons, FLCs have been rapidly gaining popularity in the
engineering practice. Moreover, fuzzy logic provides a powerful tool that allows engineers to
incorporate human reasoning in the control algorithm, in particular for PV systems [20]. In spite the
good performances provided by FLC based MPPTs, the different research works show difficulties
in the training phase and rely to a great extent of empirical and heuristic knowledge that in many
applications cannot be objectively elicited [21].
In order to overcome these problems, metaheuristic methods are used for tuning the principal
FLC parameters, like membership functions parameters and logic rule. Herrera [22] has used
Genetic Algorithms (GA) to calibrate the membership functions with pre-set logic rules, and
conversely, Cordon [23] used GA to select the logic rules with given membership functions. Other
studies use both either simultaneously or sequentially [14,24]. In different works, the Particle
Swarm Optimization (PSO) method is used for optimizing the fuzzy logic controller [25-27].
Finally, the new Cuckoo Search (CS) method has been used for tuning the membership functions
for a FLC operating in a hybrid power system [28].
In this paper, a novel FLC-based MPPT method for stand-alone PV system is proposed. The
method is based on the Cuckoo search algorithm that is used for tuning the membership functions,
for selecting the logic rules and for calculating the respective weights. These three parameters are
simultaneously optimized.
The paper is organized in four sections: Section 2 outlines the mathematical model of a PV
device. The maximum power point tracking and the conventional FLC-MPPT controller are
detailed in Section 3. The proposed method based on Cuckoo search is described in Section 4.
Section 5 presents simulation and results.

1. PV device model
Solar cells used in PV modules have nonlinear I-V and P-V characteristics that change with the
solar irradiance and the cell temperature. PV arrays and fields are made of series and parallel
connected PV modules.
A PV module can be represented by the simplified equivalent circuit models shown in Fig.1
[29,30] and described by equation (1).

[ (
I=I ph−I s exp
q (V + I Rs )
n N s kT ) ]
−1 −
V + I Rs
Rp
(1)
 Where I is the output current produced by the PV module, Ns is the number of solar cell series
connected in the PV module, V is the produced voltage, q is the electric charge (1.6x10 -19C), k is the
Boltzmann constant (1.38 x 10-23 J/K), T is the cell temperature (K), R s () is the serial resistance
and Rp () is the shunt resistance. Iph and Is are respectively the photocurrent and the saturation
current.
Where G(W/m2) is the incident solar irradiance, EG(V) is the band gap and µsc(A/°C) is the
temperature coefficient of the short circuit current.
The datasheets of a PV module usually, list the following parameters: the nominal short-
circuit current Isc(A), the nominal open-circuit voltage Voc(V), the voltage at maximum power point
(MPP) Vmax(V), the current at the maximum power point (MPP) I max(A), the temperature coefficient
of open circuit voltage KV(V/°C), the temperature coefficient of short circuit current KI (A/°C), and
the maximum peak output power Pmax (W). These parameters are provided with reference to the
nominal or Standard Test Conditions (STC: cell temperature 25°C, solar irradiance 1000W/m 2,
solar spectrum AM 1.5).

2. Fuzzy Logic Controller based MPPT

The working point of a PV module is function of the cell temperature, the solar irradiance and
of the impedance of the load connected to the module. Once these later parameters are fixed, there
is a unique point named – Maximum Power Point – corresponding to the maximum power
deliverable to the load (Pmax in Fig.2). However, when the connection source-load is direct, the
output power is generally less than the power corresponding to the maximum power point. In order
to make the PV module working closed to the maximum power point, a DC/DC converter
controlled by a MPPT algorithm is usually used as shown in Fig.3.

In contrast with conventional control techniques [19], fuzzy logic controller is best utilized in
complex ill-defined processes that can be controlled by a skilled human operator who has not
knowledge of the underlying dynamics.
The basic idea of FLC is to incorporate the ‘expert experience’ of a human operator in the
design of the controller. A collection of logical control rules (e.g. IF-THEN rules) describe the
relations between the output and the inputs, being based on linguistic variables rather than a
dynamic model of the system. The experiment of a human expert is built-in the design of the
controller by the utilization of linguistic variables, rules of control fuzzy and approximate
reasoning.
A typical architecture of a Conventional Fuzzy Logic Controller (CFLC) is shown in Fig.4.
This type of controllers is made of four main blocks/tasks: Fuzzification, Fuzzy rule base, Inference
engine, and Defuzzification.
The fuzzification task consists to convert the physical inputs of the system into linguistic values.
The fuzzy rule base stores the empirical knowledge. The inference engine, that is the core of the
FLC, simulates the human decision-making process and produces the desired control strategy. The
defuzzification is the process making it possible to transform the linguistic values into physical
values to ensure the control action. Due to their robustness and simplicity, FLCs were introduced in
PV systems and used for tracking the MPP. The proposed CFLC-MPPT, based on the Mamdani’s
approach [31], has two inputs and one output. The two FLC input variables are the error E and
change of error CE at sampled the time k, given by:

P ( k )−P(k −1)
E (k )= (2)
V ( k )−V (k −1)
CE ( k )=E ( k )−E ( k −1 ) (3)

Where p(k) is the power produced by the PV module at the instant k and V(k) is the corresponding
voltage. With reference to Fig.2, E(k) compare the operation point voltage with the voltage of the
maximum power point. On the other hand, CE(k) shows the direction of the movement on the P-V
characteristic. The output of the CFLC is the modulation signal D that is used in a PWM modulator
producing the switching pulses for the boost DC/DC converter:

∑ μ ( D j )−D j
D= j=1 n (4)
∑ μ( D j )
j=1
 The used control rules are indicated in Table.1, while the membership functions are defined
using triangular functions as shown in Fig.5.

3. Cuckoo Search Optimization

A major drawback for CFLCs is related with the tuning process that, under certain conditions,
may become difficult and time consuming. Moreover, when expert knowledge of the process is
missing, the design is slow and not optimized. Therefore, the design of a fuzzy system can be
formulated as an optimization problem in a space where each point represents a rule set, MFs,
scaling parameters, however, Evolutionary algorithms for tuning the membership function
parameters of the FLCs have thus been studied extensively in the literature, like GA algorithms
[32], PSO algorithms [26].

3.1 Cuckoo Search method

a. Cuckoo breeding behaviour
The principle of Cuckoo Search method was inspired by the character of some cuckoo
species, which consists in laying their eggs in the nests belonging to other birds. Do not lay an egg
in the nest of another species of bird without showing itself and that the intruding chick is raised by
his false parents until maturity from one self. For that, a variety of adaptations developed by the
Cuckoo females to make a success of their operation, such as the imitation of the colour and the
shape of eggs of the bird host.
If the eggs are discovered by the bird host, a conflict is engaged, and in this case, the eggs can
be thrown out from the nest or the host bird can simply leave the nest and build a new one.
Generally, parasite Cuckoos choose a nest from which the host bird comes to lay his eggs, and
since often the Cuckoo eggs brood rather than the eggs hosts, the instinct of first chick consists in
expelling the host eggs, while propelling them out of the nest. This action results in increasing the
cuckoo chick’s share of food provided by its host bird [33,34].
According to certain research, the Cuckoo chicks can even imitate the call of the host chicks, in
order to have more access to the food. CS models can be applied to various optimization problems,
and certain research works [35], proved that the use of Levy Flights instead of a simple random
walk, can improve the performance of Cuckoo Search technique.
 b. Levy flights
By seeking its food, an animal adopts a random or quasi-random path, for that, its next
movement will depend on its current location, its state and the probability of transition towards the
next position. This probability being an important parameter to choose the future direction can be
modelled mathematically. Various studies have shown that the flight behaviour of many animals
and insects demonstrates the typical characteristics of Levy flights [33,34].
A Levy Flights are a special class of random walks of which the step lengths are not constant but
vary according to a certain probability distribution with a power-law tail. After a large number of
steps, the distance from the origin of the random walk tends to a stable distribution.

c. Cuckoo Search implementation

Each egg in a nest represents a solution, and a cuckoo egg represents a new solution [35]. The
aim is to employ the new and potentially better solutions (cuckoos) to replace not-so-good solutions
in the nest. In simplest form of CS, each nest contains one egg and the algorithm can be extended to
more complicated cases in which each nest has multiple eggs representing a set of solutions.
The CS is based on three idealized rules [34,36]:
• Each cuckoo lays one egg at a time, and dumps it in a randomly chosen nest;
• The best nests with high quality of eggs (solutions) will carry over to the next generations;
• The number of available host nests is fixed, and a host can discover an alien egg with
probability pa  [0: 1]. In this case, the host bird can either throw the egg out of the nest or leave
the nest to build a new one.
For an optimisation problem, the quality (fitness) of potential solutions is evaluated by the
objective function. Other forms of fitness can be defined in a similar way to the fitness function in
genetic algorithms [14]. The main tasks of the CS are described by the following pseudo-code:

Begin
Objective function f(x) x= (x1, x2, …xd)T
Generate initial population of n host nests xi (1, 2,…,n)
While (t <MaxGeneration) or (stop criterion)
Get a cuckoo randomly by Levy flights
evaluate its quality / fitness Fi
Choose a nest among n (say .j) randomly
if (Fi >Fj)
replace j by the new solution;
end if
A fraction pa of worst nests is abandoned and new is build;
Keep the best solutions (or nests with quality solutions;
Rank the solutions and find the current best;
End while
Postprocess result and visualization
End.
4.2. CS-FLC based MPPT controller
4.2.1 Data structure
The optimization of FLC parameters has been widely studied in literature using different
types of metaheuristic methods. Chwee [37] have applied Genetic Algorithms (GA) with binary
coding for finding the parameters of the membership function under a given set off logic rule.
Cordon [23] has used GA through off-line learning in order to find an optimal rule base with known
membership functions. Authors of [14,25,38] have employed GA for optimizing both the
membership functions and the rules simultaneously. An improvement of the fuzzy controller
performance obtained by tuning parameterized membership functions and input-output (I/O) scaling
factors has been proposed by Hoffmann [39].
The main contribution of this work is to present a method for optimizing both the membership
functions and the rules using a Cuckoos Search Algorithm (CSA).
CS is a population-based algorithm, in a way similar to GA [33,40]. The CS process starts
with a population of solutions called Nests that constitutes the first generation named Pop_init.
Until a certain final condition is not met, each nest is evaluated by means of an evaluation function
and a new population is created. Each nest, encoded in three different parts as shown in Fig.6,
represents a complete definition of the FLC parameters.

a. MFs parameters tuning

The membership functions can have various forms such as, triangular, trapezoidal, gaussian
and several others. In this work, our choice was concerned the triangular form, and consequently,
seven triangular membership functions were selected for both the inputs and the output. According
to Fig.7, any triangular function is completely defined by three parameters, namely, a lower limit a,
a higher limit b and a central value c. In general, for a triangle membership function a, b and c are
not optimized simultaneously. Authors of [25,39,41] employed normalized fuzzy sets, while Park
[42]. used the optimization of the extreme values deducing the central value.
In this work, fixed central values have been chosen while considering that the control
becomes more efficient nearby the origin and less sensitive for larger inputs [39]. The central values
have thus been defined as follows:

{ ' L max−Lmin
c i=−c i=3∗i . i≥ 1 … 3
N mf −1 (5)
c0 =0 i=0

Where, Lmax =1, and Lmin= -1, are the terminals of the Universe Of Discourse (UOD), while Nmf
=7 is the number of membership function; ci is the central value of the ith fuzzy set; c0 is the central
value at origin corresponding to ZE linguistic variable.
Once determined, the central values ci are used for defining the range of different ai and bi
coefficients;
a’i and b’i represent the coefficients with negative values (Fig.6).

{
N mf −1
c i−1 <ai < ci i=1 …
2 (6)
N mf −1
c ' i+1 <a ' i < c ' i i=0 …
2

{
N mf −1
c i< bi <c i+1 i=1 …
2 (7)
N mf −1
c ' i−1< b' i <c ' i i=0 …
2

Cuckoo search algorithm is a population based stochastic global search generating at the
beginning a population of N host nests (potential solutions). These generated nests contain one
cuckoo’s egg. The structure of the nest vector is represented as follows:

nest 1= ⟨ a 11 … a 13 a11 … a14 b 11 … b 13 a11 … a14|a 21 … a24|a 31 … a34 ⟩

' ' ' ' ' '
(8)

Coefficient of Input 1 Input 2 output

Where, aij corresponds to the value of the jth triangular MF for the ith variable (see Fig.7); i = [1, 2]
for E and CE inputs respectively, and i =3 for the D output variable.
With all the encoded parameters (Eq.8), the vector representing a nest, which contains:

(3 (a' i )+3 (ai )+ 3(b 'i )+ 3(bi ))∗¿

With, a’3 = -1 and b3 =1.

b. Logical rules selecting

The fuzzy decision shown in Table.1 comprises two inputs represented by the error E(t) and
the change of error CE(t), and one output represented by the control action D(t). Each of these three
variables is evaluated over a normalized UOD, using 7 membership variables (NB, NM, NS, Z, PS,
PM, PB). A rule-base consisting of 49 rules was defined using the AND connective and equal rule-
weighting.
Several techniques were used for the selection of the logical rules, in various works. Lekova
[43] used one gene, in binary representation, to indicate inclusion or not-inclusion of a specific
logical rule, Chin [44], used a gene to represent the first part (premise) of a rule and the following
genes to represent the remaining part (linguistic degrees of control variable) of the same rule.
Thrift [45] used a gene to represent each logical rule and the value of each gene indicates the
linguistic control variable for the corresponding logical rule.
The encoding method used in this work consists in representing each logical rule by an integer
in the range (1 to 7). The used encoding method is depicted in Fig.8.

c. Weight combination
The Rule weights suppose an effective extension of the conventional fuzzy reasoning process
that allows the tuning of the system to be developed at the rule level [46]. This approach improves
the accuracy of the learned model since it induces a good cooperation among rules.
The weighted rule structure used in this work is given by:
IF E is A1 and CE is A2 THEN D is B with [W]
 Where E, CE and D are the inputs and output variables respectively, A1, A2 and B are the
linguistic labels and W is the real-valued rule weight.
With reference to Fig.9, for the CS algorithm, the 49 rule weights are represented by real
numbers in the range (0 to 1).

nest 3= [ w1 , w2 , … , wn ] (9)
Finally, the global structure of the nest is produced by concatenating the three-precedent vectors
nest1, nest2 and nest3, as shown in Fig.10.

4.3. Fitness function

To evaluate the various potential solutions of the problem, the Integral-Square-Error (ISE) is
used in the present article:
∞
ISE=∫|err (t)|. dt(10)
0

Where: err ( t )=P(t )STC−P(t)PV

P(t)STC represents the maximum produced power under STC conditions, and P(t)PV is the
instantaneous power of the PV module.

1000∗1
fitness= (11)
1+ ISE

The more the fitness is closed to 1000, the more the solution approaches the global optimum
(maximum power point).

4. Simulation results
The simulation tests have been implemented in MATLAB/Simulink, using a PV array
composed of four series modules type MSX-60, where the design specifications are listed in
Table.4. The tests are performed in two different phases, the first one comprises the design of the
CS-FLC Controller, defining the optimized membership function shapes and the logical rules
matrix, while the second phase consist in the evaluation of the CS-FLC based MPPT controller
performances.
5.1 Optimized CS-FLC
For any metaheuristic method, certain parameters influence the speed and quality of research.
For that, different setting for the population size, n (5, 10, 20, 30), probability of discovery pa (0.05,
0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.5) and the maximum generation number max_gen (50, 100, 200, 500) have been
explored leading to the optimal CSA parameters listed in Table.2. It is worth noting that the CS
algorithm needs only three parameters compared with the GA [14] and PSO [25].

Fig.11 depicts the plot of the highest and average fitness for all research process. The highest
fitness value increases gradually during the research process, converging towards the maximum
value of 1000, which corresponds to the optimal solution (generation 74). When the number of
generation reaches the maximal value, the CS algorithm stops and the nest with the highest fitness
value corresponds to the optimal solution. The three variables (E, CE and D) are presented with the
optimized membership functions whose shapes are shown in Fig.12. The weight tuned rule base,
with weights written within brackets is reported in Table.3.

5.2 Optimised CS-FLC based MPPT

In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, the designed controller is
used to track the MPP of a PV array working under uniform and non-uniform (partial shading)
irradiation conditions.
The performance of the developed MPPT is compared with the ones of the conventional FLC
based MPPT and the ones of the Evolutionary technique based MPPT method proposed by M.F.N
Tajuddin [47]. Figure 13(a) shows a schematic presentation of the global model used for simulation.
All different blocks are built in the MATLAB/Simulink environment. The PV array consists of four
PV modules which were connected in series. The PV module was modelled by using the single
diode equations according to the specifications of PV module MSX-60, as shown in Table.4, the
DC/DC converter is designed for continuous inductor current mode with the following
specifications: C1=470µF, L=10mH and 20kHz switching frequency.

a. Simulation under uniform conditions

 For the case of uniform change in insolation, the insolation is stepped from low to high, and
then to low again. The initial level is set at 500W/m 2 at time t = 0; then at t = 2s, the insolation is
suddenly stepped up to 1000W/m2, finally at t = 4s, it is stepped down to 500W/m 2. La temperature
is kept constant at 25°C. The corresponding I-V and P-V curves imposed during the step changes
test are shown in Fig.14.
Fig.15 (a) shows the output power evolution obtained using the conventional FLC-MPPT
method. As can be observed, using a symmetrical and approximate membership function and
inaccurate control rules, cause a slowly tracking for both step changes in insolation, the case is more
crucial, when the insolation changes very rapidly, where the CFLC-MPPT method may not be able
to track the change adequately. For the DE method [47], there is a large fluctuation, caused by the
optimization process, in particular for dynamic tracking (step-up and step-down conditions), as
shown in Fig.15 (b), the oscillations are present, but more and more attenuated in the steady state
region.
Fig.15 (c), shows that the proposed method, fuzzy logic based, tracks successfully the correct
MPP for both positive and negative step change, at exactly (V MPP =68.4V, IMPP =3.5A, PMPP=240W)
and (VMPP =66.8V, IMPP =1.75A, PMPP=117W) which correspond to the MPPs shown in Fig.14. it is
noticed that around the maximum power point, the oscillations decrease permanently, until
disappearing completely, and this represents the main feature of the proposed method.

b. Partial shading conditions

There are times where some parts of the PV array might be shaded by heavy could, trees, or
nearby buildings [48,49], The shaded PV cells absorb a large amount of electric power generated by
other non-shaded PV cells, and convert it into heat. This situation is called the hot-spot problem,
which my damage the PV cells with low illumination [50]. In order to relieve the stress on the
shaded PV cells, bypass diodes (Fig.13.b) are normally connected in parallel with each PV module.
The inserted bypass diodes may cause multiple peaks are established in the P-V characteristic
curves under partial shaded conditions as shown Fig.17.
Then, the PV array was subjected to partially shaded conditions to test the performance of
proposed method, these conditions under which, the conventional methods showed many handicaps.
No to encumber the article, a configuration of five more interesting cases are tabulated in Table.5,
where are listed also, the corresponding voltage and maximum power generated by the PV array
under different combinations of solar irradiance patterns, i.e. (C1 – C5).
The case C1, without any shading, are considered as a benchmark for others, and to compare the
results with those of [47], the C5 configuration are taken as reference.
The PV is initially operated at pattern C1 (peak power ~240W), at t = 2s, partial shading
occurs according to the pattern C5. Consequently, the P-V curve are characterized by four peaks,
among these, three are locals (58.3W, 102.1W and 96.6W), while the fourth are the global peak
(112W). Under these conditions, Fig.16 shows the output power tracked by Conventional FLC-
MPPT method and DE method [46] and Fig.17 present the tracked power for proposed method,
with respect to partially shading.
The simulation results of Fig.16, shows that, at t = 2s, the power quickly fell up to the local
maximum value (~102W), but proposed method could to track quickly (~ 0.18s) the global
maximum (~ 111.83W), with practically no oscillation at steady state.
It is clear that according to the Fig.17, The conventional FLC-MPPT method is not able to
track the global maximum (~ 112W) but it is trapped around a local maximum (~ 99W), the DE
method could leave the trap of the local minimum to approach the total maximum (118.6W), but
after 0.2sec. Both methods present oscillations at steady state, causing a loss of power.
Table.6 qualitatively summarizes the performance of the three methods, it can be seen that
the CFLC-MPPT method is generally trapped in local maximums, on the other hand, the proposed
and the DE methods, give good performances, while approaching the global maximum (PPM), with
a better tracking efficiency according to (Eq. 12) as below, for proposed method as shown in
Table.6.

P mppt
Tracking efficiency , E= ×100 % (12)
P max

The most crucial advantage of the proposed method is its ability to eliminate the steady-state
oscillations, to practically zero value, unlike both methods (CFLC-MPPT and DE method), which
presents some oscillations around the PPM.
 5. CONCLUSION

In this paper, a novel MPPT method based on Cuckoo search algorithm is proposed. The main
objective was to investigate the use of cuckoo Search algorithm, as a tool for the design of fuzzy
controller to track the maximum power point in photovoltaic system. The results of simulation show
that the CS-FLC based MPPT is powerful by optimizing the membership function shapes, the logic
rules selection and theirs weights simultaneously. The developed technique could locate the MPP
for different environmental variations including partial shading condition and fluctuations of
insolation, with good efficiency and a faster tracking speed. The optimization of weights allows to
minimize the logic rule number; this is very beneficial for hardware implementation.
with good efficiency and a faster tracking speed. The optimization of weights allows minimizing
the logic rule number; this is very beneficial for hardware implementation.

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