Photovoltaic Maximum Power Point

Tracking Using Artificial Neural

Network and PI Controller

Hocine Abdelhak Azzeddine, Djamel-eddine Chaouch, Mourad Hebali,

Ahmed Labaoui, Youcef Islam Djilani Kobibi, and Benaoumeur Ibari

Abstract This article outlines the development of a photovoltaic maximum power

point tracker (MPPT) based on a radial basis function artificial neural network (RBF
ANN) and a boost converter controlled by a proportional integrator (PI) controller.
The photovoltaic panel single diode model is used to create the training data for the
proposed artificial neural network and then to validate the simulation results. The
artificial neural network is then used as a voltage reference generator for a DC–DC
boost converter controlled by a PI controller to extract the maximum power available
from the photovoltaic panel. The simulation results show that the developed MPPT
has enhanced performance even in case of rapid change in temperature and solar
irradiance levels.

Keywords MPPT · Photovoltaic · Artificial neural network

1 Introduction

Energy production is a challenge of great importance for the future. Demand for
energy of industrialized countries is clearly set to continue growing while the coun-
tries developing will need more and more energy to carry out their development
[1]. In this context, solar energy could be a real solution of energy supplies of these
countries while respecting environment and sustainable development requirements.
Among the techniques of solar energy harvesting, photovoltaic systems are by far the
most used nowadays [2]. A photovoltaic panel directly converts solar energy into a
direct electrical current using semiconducting material that exhibits the photovoltaic
effect. A photovoltaic panel exhibits nonlinear current–voltage characteristics, and
for any given operating conditions, there is a unique operating point defined by its
corresponding current (I mpp ) and voltage (V mpp ) where the panel output power is at its
maximum [3]. This point is commonly known as the maximum power point (MPP).
Maximizing the efficiency of power by tracking this point is decisive to overcome

H. A. Azzeddine (B) · D. Chaouch · M. Hebali · A. Labaoui · Y. I. D. Kobibi · B. Ibari

Mustapha Stambouli University of Mascara, Mascara, Algeria
e-mail: hocine.azzeddine@univ-mascara.dz

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 393
V. Mahajan et al. (eds.), Sustainable Technology and Advanced Computing
in Electrical Engineering, Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering 939,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-4364-5_29
394 H. A. Azzeddine et al.

the higher investment required for the installation of a photovoltaic system [4]. To
this end, a photovoltaic system must be able to control a static converter used as an
interface between PV panel and the load in a way to enforce the panel to operate at its
maximum power point [3]. This solution is called maximum power point tracking.
A maximum power point tracker uses an algorithm which continuously provides the
V mpp and/or the I mpp values [5]. The most common algorithms have many drawbacks:
the perturb and observe method exhibits a bad dynamic response; the increment
conduction method requires complex control circuitry; and the extremum seeking
control method suffers from the complexity of its implementation and the neces-
sity to measure small signals [6, 7]. Moreover, artificial intelligence neural networks
are expected to predict accurately and quickly the maximum power point of a solar
panel without needing its parameters or knowledge of the complicated relationships
between system inputs and outputs [6]. During the last decade, many published works
focus on the use of artificial neural networks for photovoltaic applications: prediction
and estimation of solar power potential [6–8], system sizing [9], photovoltaic panel
modeling [10], system control [11], and maximum power point tracking [12, 13]. In
this work, a radial basis function neural network is developed, tested, and used in a
system for extracting the maximum power of a photovoltaic panel.

2 System Configuration

2.1 Photovoltaic Panel Modeling

The single diode electrical model shown on Fig. 1 is used to modeling the photovoltaic
panel. This model is quite simple and offers a good accuracy [14].
The model is governed by the following equation:
   
q(V + Rs I V + Rs I
I = Iph − Is exp −1 − (1)
AKT Rsh

where I is the output current of the photovoltaic cell (A), V is the output voltage of
the photovoltaic cell (V), T is the cell temperature (K), I ph is the photo current of the
diode (A), I s is the reverse saturation current of the diode (A), q is the electron charge
(1.602 × 10–19 C), A is a diode ideality factor between 1 and 2, k is the Boltzmann’s

Fig. 1 PV cell model

Photovoltaic Maximum Power Point Tracking Using Artificial Neural … 395

constant (1.381 × 10–23 J/K), Rs is the series cell resistance (), and Rsh is the shunt
cell resistance () [15, 16]
Equations (2) and (3) show the temperature dependence of the photo current and
the saturation current of the diode, respectively [14].

G
Iph = (Isc + ai (T − Tref )) (2)
G ref

where I sc is the cell’s short-circuit current at standard conditions test (STC) (A), ai
is the cell’s short-circuit current temperature coefficient (A/K), T ref is the standard
temperature (298 K), G is the solar irradiance (W/m2 ), and Gref is the standard solar
irradiance (1000 W/m2 ).

Isc + ai (T − Tref )
Is =   (3)
v (T −Tref )
exp Voc +aAkT −1

where V oc is the standard cell’s open circuit voltage (V) and av is the voltage
temperature coefficient (V/K).
The relationship between the current I (A) and the voltage V m (V) of a photovoltaic
module consisting of N photovoltaic cells in series is expressed as in Eq. (4) [15,
17].
   
q(Vm + Rs I Vm + Rs I
I = Iph − Is exp −1 − (4)
NAKT Rsh

To fitting the photovoltaic panel current–voltage curve, the Newton–Raphson

method is applied. For a given voltage value, the model can be written as follow:
   
q(Vm + Rs I Vm + Rs I
f (I ) = I − Iph − Is exp −1 − =0 (5)
NAKT Rsh

The Newton–Raphson method is used to find the root of the function f (I ). The
principle of the method is as follow: starting with an initial value I 0 , the algorithm
executes the following iterations:

f (I )
Ii + 1 = Ii + (6)
f  (I )

where f  (I ) is the derivate of the function f (I ). The algorithm is stopped if the

difference of two succeeding iterations values is less than a predefined threshold.
In this work, the SunPower® photovoltaic panel is used. The main electrical data
of this photovoltaic panel taken from its datasheet are summarized in Table 1.
396 H. A. Azzeddine et al.

Table 1 SunPower® 300

Parameter Value
photovoltaic panel parameters
Open circuit voltage at STC, V oc 64 V
Short-circuit current at STC, I sc 5.87 A
Temperature coefficient of open circuit voltage, −0.1766 V/K
av
Temperature coefficient of short-circuit current 0.0035 A/K
ai

Fig. 2 PV module
current–voltage
characteristics

The datasheet provides, in addition, the open circuit voltage, the current at
maximum power and the open circuit voltage values at 20 °C and 800 W/m2 ; and
some measured current–voltage curves at different operating conditions. The others
model parameters are adjusted against simulation by comparison between several
current–voltage curves generated by the mathematical model, and the data and curves
provided in the SunPower® 300 photovoltaic module datasheet. The following values
are well suited to our photovoltaic module: A = 1.7, Rs = 0.1 , and Rsh = 10 K.
Figure 2 shows the photovoltaic panel nonlinear behavior under varying climatic
conditions. On a given curve, there is a single point defined by its voltage and current
where the power delivered by the photovoltaic panel is at its maximum. This point
(MPP) changes when the operating conditions change.

2.2 DC–DC Boost Converter

The operating point of a photovoltaic system is defined by the photovoltaic panel

current–voltage curve and the load line intersection. To extract the maximum power
of the panel, it is essential to maintain the operating point very close to the maximum
power point. This is not a simple task, once the maximum power point all the time
changes when solar irradiance and temperature level change. The solution is, there-
fore, to allow the system to change the load line for the panel so that the operating
Photovoltaic Maximum Power Point Tracking Using Artificial Neural … 397

point is very close to the maximum power point. This is possible if a static converter
is interposed between the PV module and the load. The converter duty cycle must
be controlled so that, when temperature or solar irradiance changes, the impedance
seen by the photovoltaic panel corresponds to the desired operating point. For our
system, a DC–DC boost converter operating in a continuous mode is used.

2.3 PI Controller

The control scheme is simple, and it controls the input voltage of the boost converter
(the output voltage of the PV panel) (Fig. 3).
For this, a single loop control suffices. One output of the radial basis function
artificial neural network (the V mpp value) is a signal which is compared with the
actual output voltage of the PV panel in order to generate the control signal required to
control the boost converter and drive the PV panel to its MPP through a PI controller.
When the boost input voltage (the PV output voltage) tends to be lower or higher than
the reference voltage (V mpp ) delivered by the artificial neural network, the control
loop increase or decrease the duty cycle and, thereby, controls the boost input voltage
at the maximum power voltage. Compared to other published works, our control
schema controls a single parameter. To control the boost converter output voltage
and current, other control loops must be added as needed.

Fig. 3 Overall proposed MPPT system

398 H. A. Azzeddine et al.

3 Proposed Artificial Neural Network

3.1 Basics of Radial Basis Function Artificial Neural

Network

Inspired by the neural structure of the brain, artificial neural networks (ANN) can
be used in intelligent systems since they are able to learning and solving problems
from examples previously chosen [18, 19]. Radial basis function (RBF) artificial
neural networks are easy to implement, and they generalize well and they are insen-
sitive to noisy data [20]. The decisive advantage of artificial neural networks is their
ability to model the behavior of photovoltaic systems without need the complicated
mathematical models governing input and output variables systems [21].
The structure of a radial basis function network has three layers with completely
different roles [22]. The input layer is made up of input nodes, also called source
nodes. The second layer (a hidden layer) has a high enough number of neurons; each
neuron performs a nonlinear transformation of the input, by means of a radial basis
function [23, 24]. The output layer is a linear combination of the hidden input nodes.
A radial basis function neural network is fully connected: every neuron in each layer
is connected to every other neuron in the next layer [24]. Synaptic weights between
the input layer and the hidden layer networks have a unit value.
Figure 4 shows a structure diagram of a radial basis function neural network
with n input nodes, m hidden layer nodes, and one output layer node. Each node in
the hidden layer is a Gaussian function defined by its center cj and its radius r j in
accordance with Eq. (7).
  2
x − cj
h j (x) = exp − (7)
2r 2j

Fig. 4 RBF artificial neural

network structure
Photovoltaic Maximum Power Point Tracking Using Artificial Neural … 399

Fig. 5 Proposed ANN

inputs/outputs

where x is a scalar input.

The output node is given by the equation

m
f (x) = w j h j (x) (8)
j=1

where wj is the weight of the synapse connecting the hidden node of rank j to the
output node.
In short, RBF network process learning is divided into two stages. The learning
process begins with determining the number of neurons in the hidden layer, and the
center and radius of each neuron using an unsupervised method. After, by means of a
supervised technique, the weights of the output layer connections are adjusted [24].

3.2 Design of the Proposed Artificial Neural Network

The proposed neural network is designed in such a way to have as sensory input
units the temperature and the solar irradiance measurements, and as outputs the
corresponding I mpp and V mpp values (Fig. 5).

3.3 Training Data Generation

I mpp and V mpp values for different temperature and solar irradiance conditions
obtained using the single diode model detailed above are used as examples to train
the proposed artificial neural network. Values of cell temperature are chosen between
0 and 70 ºC, while the solar irradiance values are chosen between 50 and 1000 W/m2 .
Training set consists of a matrix of data, where each column corresponds to a variable
(temperature, solar irradiance, I mpp , and V mpp ).
400 H. A. Azzeddine et al.

Fig. 6 Training error

evolution

3.4 Training of the Proposed ANN

During the training process, the artificial neural network parameters are adjusted in
order to make the actual ANN outputs (predicated V mpp and I mpp values) close to the
target outputs (V mpp and I mpp values of the data training set). The learning is stopped
when the desired accuracy defined by the mean squared error goal is reached. A good
accuracy was reached after 600 iterations for a mean square error goal fixed at 0.03
and a spread of the radial basis function value equal to 1 (Fig. 6).
In this step, the network’s ability to generalize is tested. A network generalizes
well when it gives acceptable results for input conditions not encountered during the
phase of learning. So, the designed neural network is used to predict several maximum
power points of the photovoltaic module for temperature and solar irradiance levels
other than training data set. To be validated, results are compared to those estimated
by the one diode model at the same climatic conditions (Fig. 7).
It is clear that maximum power points predicted by the proposed ANN are very
close to those calculated by the single diode model. So we can state that the proposed
artificial neural network has very good performances and therefore, for any cell
temperature and solar irradiance conditions, it can predict the maximum power point
of the photovoltaic panel with a very good accuracy.

4 Simulation Results

The proposed neural network will be used to provide the reference voltage to control
the input voltage of a boost converter connected to a photovoltaic panel and controlled
using a PI controller. The system will be tested for very rapid changes in temperature
Photovoltaic Maximum Power Point Tracking Using Artificial Neural … 401

Fig. 7 ANN generalization ability

and solar irradiance. Figure 8 shows the temperature and solar irradiation profiles
used for the test.
Figure 9 shows the panel output voltage response, while Fig. 10 shows the panel
output current response.
It is clear that the system exhibits good dynamic and static performances. Even in
the event of rapid changes in temperature and solar irradiance, the proposed MPPT
can find quickly and accurately the new maximum power point.

Fig. 8 Solar irradiance and temperature profiles for the MPPT test
402 H. A. Azzeddine et al.

Fig. 9 Voltage response

Fig. 10 Current response

5 Conclusion

A photovoltaic maximum power point tracker can be easily synthesized by means of

an artificial neural network and a PI controller. The trained neural network provides
the reference voltage value and/or the reference current value while the PI controller
controls a static converter inserted between the photovoltaic panel and the load such
a way that the operating point is very close to the photovoltaic panel maximum power
point. The simulation results show that the MPPT has good performances even in
Photovoltaic Maximum Power Point Tracking Using Artificial Neural … 403

case of rapid change of temperature and solar irradiances conditions. The decisive
advantage of the proposed MPPT over conventional techniques such as perturb and
observe technique is its precision and reliability in the event of operating conditions
fast change. This work is the first phase of a research on grid connected photovoltaic
systems.

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