Comparison Study between conventional and
Artificial Neural Networks MPPT techniques for
standalone PV system
H. Afghoul1,2*, H. Chanaba1, S. Merah1, F. Krim2, A. Harrag3
1
LTSE laboratory, Superior School of Industrial Technologies (ESTI) Annaba, Algeria
2
LPCI laboratory, Faculty of technology, Ferhat Abbas Setif-1 university, Algeria
3
Mechatronics Laboratory, Optics and Precision Mechanics Institute, Ferhat ABBAS University Setif-1, Algeria
*1h.afghoul@esti-annaba.dz, 2krim_f@ieee.org, 3a.harrag@univ-setif.dz
Abstract—Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) algorithms
are necessary because PV arrays have a nonlinear voltage-current
characteristic with a unique point where the power produced is
maximum. This paper provides a comparative study between
conventional and artificial neural networks (ANN) maximum
power point tracking (MPPT) technique for standalone system
under variable weather conditions. To assess the performance, a
MATLAB/Simulink model for the PV system is used to simulate the
Perturb and Observe (P&O), Incremental Conductance (InC) and
the proposed ANN MPPT methods. The results show that the
proposed ANN process accurately tracks the optimal maximum
power point and avoids the issue of drift while achieving a higher
output power compared to the P&O and InC-MPPT system.
Keywords—component; MPPT; Artificial Neural Networks;
P&O; InC
I. INTRODUCTION
According to the United Nations, the current world population
estimated at around 7.7 billion people. This dramatic growth
causes a huge increase in energy demand, which leads to
remarkable growth in primary energy consumption especially
fossil fuels which accounted for about 84.32 percent of global
energy consumption by the end of 2019. This overdependence
on fossil fuels is a major reason for concerns about their
depletion and their environmental impacts such as global
warming, climate changes, CO2 emission, greenhouse gases,
and environmental pollution [1, 2].
Research during the last decades has focused on developing
clean and sustainable energy sources such as sun, wind, water,
biomass ... etc. Photovoltaic (PV) system is the most promising
energy generator according to its low operational and
maintenance costs, free energy source, high availability.
Moreover, it converts the sunlight directly to electricity without
noise or environmental pollution [1, 3].
Many mathematical models based on Shockley diode equation
have been introduced to describe the nonlinear behavior of the
PV cell. These models are distinguished from each other by the
ideal single diode model which is the simplest approach and
ending by 2M7P approach which is the most accurate and
complicated model [4].
Since the nonlinear I-V and P-V characteristics of PV
generator are depending on solar irradiance and cell
temperature, the operating point can be located away from the
maximum power point (MPP) especially in the case of direct
connection with the load, which affects the efficiency of PV
panel and leads to high power losses. In order to overcome this
problem, DC-DC boost converter is used as an interface device
matching between the PV generator and the load, where the
duty cycle is controlled by Maximum Power Point Technique
(MPPT) [5].
Many maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithms have
been introduced to ensure that the PV generator operates at or
near to the MPP, one of the most widely used MPPT
techniques is Perturb and observe (P&O) and Incremental
Conductance (InC) algorithms because of their simple
feedback structure, the ease of implementation and the reduced
number of their parameters [3]. However, these techniques
exhibit some limitations during steady state condition and fast
change in the environmental conditions [4-6].
Nowadays, MPPT techniques based on artificial intelligence
such as Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC), Artificial Neural
Networks (ANN), fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS), and
Genetic Algorithms (GA) are proposed to solve these
limitations and improve the steady and dynamic states [7-11].
In this paper, a comparative study has been carried out between
ANN and two conventional MPPTs (P&O and Inc). ANN
technique proved its efficiency and accuracy during the
tracking process under different weather conditions.
II. POWER SYSTEM
A. PV generator
Firstly, many electrical circuit models have been introduced
to describe the non-linear I-V characteristics of the
photovoltaic cell. Fig.1 displays the 1M5P model. It consists of filter the output current and a capacitor to filter the output
a current source in parallel to a diode, series resistance which voltage [1, 5].
describes the losses related to the contact resistance and a shunt
resistance which represents the losses due to the leakage
current to the ground.

Fig. 1. PV model with five parameters

Therefore, the relationship between I pv and V pv can be

written as,

  Vpv + I pv .Rs    Vpv + I pv .Rs 

I pv = I ph − I s exp   − 1 −   (1)
   .VT    Rsh 

While, V pv is the diode voltage,  is the diode ideality

factor, VT is the thermal voltage, I s is the saturation current and
I ph is the photocurrent.

The simulation based on the datasheet of MSX-60 module

and the parameters of this solar module are listed in the Table
1. Fig. 2. I-V and P-V characteristic of a typical solar cell

TABLE I. ELECTRICAL CHARACTERISTICS DATA OF MSX-60 MODULE

PV panel parameters Values

Maximum power Pmax 60W
Maximum power voltage VMPP 17.1V

Maximum power current I MPP 3.5A

Short-circuit current I SC 3.8A

Open-circuit voltage VOC 21.1V
Voltage/temp. coefficient KV −0.38%/°C
Current/temp. coefficient K I 0.065%/°C
Fig. 3. General structure of boost converter
The number of cells N s 36
The design of the used boost is presented in Table 2.
Fig. 2 shows the I-V and P-V characteristic of a typical
TABLE II. DESIGN OF THE BOOST CONVERTER
solar cell, under constant irradiation and temperature
conditions. Parameters Values

L 1.2 mH
B. DC-DC converter
Cin 75  F
A DC-DC converter is used as an interface device
connecting the PV panel and the load in order to extract the
CO 75  F
maximum power from the PV panel whatever the weather’s
conditions or the type of the load. f 10 KHz
As it is shown in Fig 3, the general structure of a DC-DC R 50 
boost converter consists of an input voltage (source), output
voltage (load), and a power electronic switch such as MOSFET  MPP 0.69
or IGBT in parallel with a diode. It also contains an inductor to
 III. MPPT TECHNIQUES B. InC technique
Incremental conductance (InC) algorithm is also widely
A. P&O technique used, it is introduced to defeat the limitations of (P&O)
According to its simplicity and efficiency, Perturb and algorithm and improve its performances [13]. As shown in Fig.
Observe (P&O) algorithm is classified as the most commonly 5, during each stage, this method compares the instantaneous
used [2, 12]. The principle of this method as it shown in Fig. 4 conductance (I/V) and the incremental conductance (∆I/∆V). If
is perturbing (incrementing or decrementing) the array terminal the slope of P-V curve (∆P/∆V) is negative which means that
voltage during every iteration and observe the effect of this the operating point is on right of the MPP than the PV array
perturbation on the PV output power then compare it with the terminal voltage is decreased. In the case of positive slope, the
previous iteration’s value. If the power increases the operating point is on left of the MPP and the PV array terminal
perturbation will keep in the same direction, otherwise the voltage is increased, otherwise the slope is equal to zero which
perturbation is reversed. When the maximum power point means that the instantaneous conductance and the incremental
(MPP) is reached, the operating point starts to oscillate around conductance are equal and the MPP is reached [15].
the MPP.
However, P&O method has several limitations such as:
• The increase of the power losses as a result of the
oscillation around the MPP in the steady state condition
especially in the case of large step [13].
• During a speed change condition in the irradiation
levels, the (P&O) algorithm is uncrated and slow
especially in the case of small step size [13, 14].
• Besides the high number of iterations, this method
requires to measure the current and the voltage in each
stage, this strongly affects the efficiency of (P&O)
algorithm and leads to more losses in the power [14].

Fig. 5. Flowchart of InC algorithm

C. ANN technique
Analysis concept of artificial neural networks (ANN) was
developed nearly 50 years ago [16]. However, software for
applications has only been developed in the last 20 years to
handle practical problems [17, 18]. ANN has become popular
and expanded with the advancement of soft computing
technology in MPP tracking for PV systems [19, 20]. ANNs
are non-linear mapping systems similar to the role of the
human brain, since they mimic the learning mechanism of the
human brain [21]. The proposed ANN in this study is a feed-
forward neural network consisting of three layers, namely the
input layer, the hidden layer and the output layers shown in Fig
Fig. 4. Flowchart of P&O algorithm
6. The input layer consists the PV array current and voltage, Fig. 8 shows the training process using nnstart toolbox.
while the output layer is the duty cycle signal that drives the
power converter to operate at or close to the MPP based on the
hidden layer algorithm. The link between nodes i and j is
considered as having a wij weight. The technique for the
neural network is based on changing layer weights in order to
achieve the target values. During the training process, weights
are adjusted to track the target values with minimum error [22,
23]. However, the main drawback of this approach is that ANN
must be trained for the PV array in use and therefore cannot be
extended to operate on many forms at the same time unless it is
qualified to do so. In addition, the characteristics of the PV
array shift over time, which requires the periodic training of the
ANN for accurate monitoring of the MPP. This method
requires an expensive microprocessor to be used and is
therefore not appropriate for small applications [24, 25].

Fig. 8. ANN training by MATLAB nnstart

Fig. 9 describes the mean squared error (MSE) which

decreases during the increase of epochs.

Fig. 6. Feedforward neural network

The training process defines the weights of neural network

connections. The method of training used in this work is the
supervised approach. Therefore, to accomplish this process a
set of input output pairs of the training patterns or training data
are required [26]. A flowchart, shown in Fig. 7, presents the
methodology of the training process of the ANN for MPPT.
Fig. 9. ANN performance
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The designed system was simulated in the
MATLAB/SIMULINK environment. the system was
implemented to verify the functionality and performance of the
proposed P&O, InC and ANN based MPPT. In order to study
the dynamic response of P&O, InC and ANN the designed
MPPT techniques, the predefined varying irradiation and fixed
ambient temperature (25 °C) are considered as input to the PV
array. As seen in Fig. 10.

Fig. 10. Solar irradiance profile for sudden and gradually irradiance changes
Fig. 7. Flowchart of the training process of the ANN for MPPT test
 Fig. 11 shows the comparison between artificial P&O and INC controllers in terms of response time and
intelligence MPPT algorithm and conventional techniques. oscillations during changing solar irradiance. A comparative
According to this figure, the ANN controller has better table with the main values obtained in simulation for different
transient characteristics and dynamic performance than the MPPT is presented in Table 3.

Fig. 11. Output power using ANN, InC and P&O techniques

TABLE III. TABLE OF GRADES

MPPT Factors of comparison Irradiation (W/m2)

800 400 1000 600 900

Tr ( s ) 0.06 0.03 0.0055 0.0045 0.015

P&O  ( %) 98.13 96.31 96.81 97.53 98.15

Power oscillation ( W) 1.8 1.77 3.8 1.78 2
Tr ( s ) 0.057 0.024 0.0048 0.0043 0.014

Inc  ( %) 98.16 96.46 97.47 97.61 98.17

Power oscillation ( W) 1.77 1.7 3 1.72 1.98
Tr ( s ) 0.015 0.0215 0.002 0.0035 0.01

ANN  ( %) 99.52 99 99.66 99.3 99.86

Power oscillation ( W) 0.46 0.48 0.4 0.5 0.97

CONCLUSION
In this paper, an MPPT based ANN controller is
compared with P&O and InC controllers. The simulation
results using Matlab/Simulink model are obtained under
different irritation levels. These results prove the superiority
of the ANN controller in term of tracking speed time and
steady state oscillation compared with P&O and InC
techniques.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors of this paper would like to express their
gratitude to the LTSE and LEPCI laboratories members
which collaborate to realize this work. This paper is a part of
the project PRFU: A10N01UN190120180002.
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