ANFIS Control for Photovoltaic Systems with
DC-DC Converters
Mohammad Abu Sarhan1, 2, Min Ding1, 2, Xin Chen1, 2, Yingxiong Ou1, 2 and Min Wu1, 2
1
School of Automation, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
2
Hubei Key Laboratory of Advanced Control and Intelligent Automation for Complex Systems,
Wuhan 430074, China
Email: wumin@cug.edu.cn
ABSTRACT
This paper presents a maximum power point tracking controller
for a PV solar system. The PV solar system is connected to the
load through a DC-DC boost converter which is controlled by
Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) MPPT
controller. The ANFIS controller is modeled by selecting the
irradiation and temperature as an input for the controller while
the duty cycle is the output of the controller. To demonstrate that
the performance of ANFIS MPPT controller gives more accurate
results and more efficiency with respect to the measured results,
it is compared with Fuzzy Logic (FL) MPPT controller and
Neural Network (NN) MPPT controller. The analyzed results
and the comparison have been obtained through
MATLAB/Simulink Environment.
CCS Concepts
• Hardware ➝ Power and energy ➝ Energy distribution ➝
Power conversion
Keywords
Photovoltaic systems; maximum power point tracking; DC-DC
converters; artificial intelligence.
1. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, a lot of researchers are extremely interested in
renewable energy resources, due to the trepidation of fossil fuel
depletion in addition to incrementing environmental aspects.
Photovoltaic (PV) energy is of special interest, compared to
other renewable energy resources. Various factors such as
emission reduction, minimal running cost and direct electric
power production form a solid substructure of merits. For this
reason, the massive perforation of PV-based systems in the
energy sector is understandable.
PV cell acts like a current source which produces an electric
current when it is exposed to sunlight. Because of non-linear
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https://doi.org/10.1145/3175516.3175522
9
characteristics of PV cell with respect to the surrounding, the
tracking of maximum power point is a difficult task. At each
certain value of irradiation and temperature there is a unique
point of maximum power which requires special techniques to
reach that point. Apart from the non-linearity of PV system,
these techniques which are known as maximum power point
trackers (MPPT) can be implemented for any PV system.
Among the conventional MPPT methods, the three most popular
techniques, Perturb and Observe, Incremental Conductance and
the Hill Climbing, are broadly used because of their
convergence speed and simplicity in implementation [1].
However, the effectiveness of these methods is challenged when
the variation in environmental conditions change the Maximum
Power Point (MPP) [2,3]. In addition, the oscillatory behavior
around the MPP reduces the system efficiency because of the
power losses [4]. In order to cope with the aforementioned
problem, one solution is the use of soft computing techniques,
such as Fuzzy Logic Controllers and Artificial Neural Networks
(ANN). These soft computing techniques which are presented in
literature [4,6] can track the MPP more efficiently under
changing environmental conditions: working temperature and
irradiance level. Fuzzy logic and artificial neural networks are
the most suitable for improvement of the dynamic performance
of the maximum power point tracking and can be used for many
automation computing not just in MPPT problem but far more.
An Adaptive Neuro- Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) is a
hybrid method incorporating the benefits of the two
aforementioned techniques. The ANFIS technique constitutes a
fast and appropriate systematic solution to the PV system even
with inaccurate meteorological data. In addition, unlike the
Fuzzy Logic Controller, the ANFIS can benefit from being
trained from previous operational data [6].
In the present paper, an ANFIS controller is proposed for a PV
solar system which is supplying a DC power to a load
throughout a DC-DC boost converter. ANFIS method obtains
the MPP of the PV solar system by determining the value of
boost converter duty cycle from the climate data solar irradiation
and PV cell temperature. In addition, the comparison between
this method and other methods, Fuzzy Logic and Neural
Network MPPT techniques, shows that ANFIS MPPT method
gives more power and efficiency than Fuzzy Logic and Neural
Network MPPT methods. The comparison, the investigation and
the results have been done by MATLAB/Simulink Environment.
2. CHARACTERISTIC OF PV SYSTEM
Semiconductor materials, such as silicon or germanium, are
considered as main ingredients of PV manufacturing process.
The solar cell basically consists of p-n semiconductor junction
which directly converts the sunlight into electric DC volt. To ( )( ) (4)
maintain the required ratings of the PV system, PV cells are ( )
grouped together to form a PV module and parallel-series
connection of more modules form PV arrays. In order to observe where Eg is band gap energy in eV.
and find out the efficiency and the reliability of the MPPT These equations demonstrate that PV module has non-linear
controllers, a PV solar system which is connected to a load via a characteristics which vary with the variation of temperature and
DC-DC boost converter is shown in Fig. 1. irradiation. The non-linear characteristics of PV module are
represented by current, voltage and power (I, V, P) curves as
Several mathematical models are developed for the analysis of shown in Fig. 3. and Fig. 4.
solar cell. In this paper, a single-diode model is chosen to design
the solar cell [2]. The main equivalent circuit of the solar cell
contains of different electric and electronic components such as
a current source, a shunt diode, a shunt resistor and a series
resistor, as it shown in Fig. 2.

Figure 3. I-V characteristic of PV module at different

Figure 1. Model of ANFIS MPPT based on PV system.
temperature levels.

Figure 2. Equivalent circuit of PV cell.

The equations that describe the I-V characteristic of the solar
cell are (1), (2), (3), and (4)
(1)
where Ipv is solar cell current, Iph is the photon generated current,
ID and Ish are the currents which pass through the diode and the
shunt resistance respectively.
( ) (2)
) )

where Vpv is solar cell voltage, Rs is series resistance, Rsh is shunt
resistance, q is electron charge (1.6×10 -19 C), Ns is number of
solar cells connected in series, Np is number of solar cells
connected in parallel, Io is reverse saturation current at standard
test conditions, T is absolute temperature, A is diode ideality
constant and K is Boltzmann constant (1.38×10 -23 J/K).
(3)
[ )]
where Iscr is short circuit current of PV cell at standard test
condition of 25 oC and 1000W/m2, Ki is the temperature
coefficient of short circuit current, Tr is the reference
temperature, G is the solar irradiation and Gn is the reference
solar irradiation.
Figure 4. I-V characteristic of PV module at different
irradiation levels.
Referring to Fig. 3. and Fig. 4. there are three important points
should be highlighted on the curve as following:
 Open - Circuit Point: this point can be obtained when the
terminals of the PV module are disconnected. In this case, the
module presents a voltage known as open circuit voltage Voc.
This open circuit voltage Voc can be calculated by analyzing
Fig. 2. as following:
(5)
( )

10
 according to (3) and (4), both of Iph and Io are a temperature
and irradiation – variant functions which satisfy that Voc is
mainly affected by both of temperature and irradiation.
 Short - Circuit Point: this point can be obtained when the
terminals of the PV module are connected with an ideal
conductor. In this case, the module current is called short
circuit current Isc which can be obtained as following:
(6)
where K is a constant that depends on both of cell area and
efficiency. Also as represented in (6), Isc depends on both of
temperature and irradiation.
 Maximum - Power Point: this point is available only at one
specific operating condition and can be obtained when the
product of voltage and current is maximum Pm. The PV
power can be calculated as:
(7)
It is clear that all of Voc, Isc and Pm are directly proportional to
irradiation, while increasing of cell temperature leads to
decrease Voc, Isc and Pm and decreasing of cell temperature
produces opposite effect.
3. EQUIVELENT CIRCUIT OF DC/DC
CONVERTER
One of the necessary steps to track the reference voltage which
gives the maximum power point is DC/DC conversion. A
DC/DC converter is the main link between the PV system and
the load which converts the photovoltaic voltage from one level
to another higher or lower level. In this case, a boost converter is
implemented to regulate the photovoltaic voltage through
controlled switching devices to reach the required MPP.
The boost converter which consists of switching devices such as
transistor and diode, an inductor and a capacitor is a step up DC-
DC converter which boosts the PV voltage level to a high output
voltage level. The equivalent circuit of DC-DC boost converter
is shown in Fig. 5.
Figure 5. Equivalent circuit of boost converter.
By implementing Faraday’s law for the boost inductor, the
following equation is obtained:
( ) ) (8)
Referring to (8), the dc voltage transfer function of the boost
converter becomes as:
(9)
where Vo is the output voltage of the boost converter, Vpv is the
PV module output voltage, both in V, D is the duty cycle and T
is the period of switching frequency.
In maximum power point tracking, the main function of the
boost converter is to move the PV voltage Vpv to a higher
11
voltage Vo which should be corresponding to the maximum
power point voltage Vmmp. In this operation, there should be a
matching between the resistance which can be seen by the PV
system and the output resistance of the boost converter Ro.
It is important to calculate the value of duty cycle which is
between 0 and 1 to have the ability to reach the maximum power
points of the PV cell.
4. ANFIS MPPT BASED PV POWER
SYSTEM
The main structure of ANFIS which is a combination of fuzzy
logic and neural network provides combined merits of both
methods. In fuzzy logic determining the correct fuzzy rules
needs more time and more efforts and neural network, which
can be used to map nonlinear modeling, is considered as a black
box. Therefore, the architecture of ANFIS which is based on
Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy inference system overcomes their demerits
[6].
To understand the principle operation of ANFIS, it is divided in
to five layers as shown in Fig. 6. Each special layer has its own
function to tune the output value as described in (10), (11), (12),
(13) and (14).
Figure 6. ANFIS structure.
Layer1 is the input layer which takes x and y as crisp inputs and
sends it to the next layer. In each node of this layer employs a
node function as given by:
)
{ }
) (10)
where both of µAi and µBi are any designed fuzzy membership
function.
Layer 2 performs fuzzification process by making crisp values
fuzzy. In this layer, each node calculates the firing strength for
the associated rule as follows:
) ) (11)
Layer 3 is the rule base layer which maps output to input based
on the degree of match. The i-th node in this layer then
calculates the ratio of the i-th rules firing strength to the sum of
all rules firing strength, that is,
(12)
wi
 panel while varying the resistive load, then the power can be
where wi indicates the normalized firing strength.
calculated at each certain resistance, while in Fig. 8. the
Layer 4 is the normalization layer which measures the temperature T is constant (25◦C) and the irradiation G is variable
normalized firing strength of a given rule. For each node in this (1000, 800, 600W/m2). The variation of irradiation G has less
layer, the calculation can be obtained from the following effect on the area of MPP region than the temperature variation.
equation: In addition, it is observed that the increasing of irradiance level
increases the output PV power and the increasing of temperature
wi wi (13) level decreases the output PV power.

where (pi, qi, ri) is the consequent parameter set of the i-th node. Table 1. SM50-H PV MODULE ELECTRICAL
PARAMETERS
Layer 5 is the defuzzification layer which converts fuzzy value
to crisp values and give the desired output duty cycle which Parameters Values
tunes the MPPT controller to locate the MPP with higher Maximum Power (Pm) 50 W
accuracy. In this layer there is a single node which calculates the
overall output as the summation of all incoming signals as Maximum Power Voltage (Vmpp) 15.9 V
follows:
Maximum Power Current (Impp) 3.15 A
∑ (14)
∑ wi Open-circuit Voltage (Voc) 19.8 V
∑

When the number of epochs is adequate during training process, Short-circuit Current (Isc) 3.35 A
ANFIS can easily handle with the input-output mapping of Number of Series Cells (Ns) 33
training data sets. The set of fuzzy rules then be created by
ANFIS to provide the proper output for different values of Number of Parallel Module (Np) 2
inputs. The membership function parameters are adapted to
eliminate the error to the possible minimum value. When all of
membership function parameters are adapted, ANFIS controller
can be implemented in the MPPT control scheme as a learning
model. Before implementing the ANFIS learning model for
MPPT control, the results should be checked again to make sure
that the error is less than the desired value. If not, the
membership function parameters are changed to reduce the error.
The DC-DC boost converter is modeled to be linked between the
solar PV system and the load in order to carry the maximum
power to the load by changing the value of boost converter duty
cycle. The ANFIS controller generates the value of duty cycle D
based on temperature T and irradiation G.
As a result, ANFIS builds the fuzzy inference system by using
the data sets of the input and the output also the parameters of
the membership function. In this paper, the hybrid optimization
method which combines between the back propagation
algorithm and the least squares method is used to tune the
membership functions. The main steps of the hybrid Figure 7. PV characteristic of solar module at different
optimization method are forward pass and backward pass. In temperatures.
case of forward pass, premise parameters are fixed and least
square estimation is used to update the consequent parameters,
while in case of backward pass, consequent parameters are fixed
and back propagation gradient descent method is used to update
the premise parameters [4].

5. SIMULATION RESULTS AND

DISCUSSION
In this work, the proposed model which is simulated in
MATLAB is shown in Fig. 1. Also, the solar module is
simulated with parameters similar to SM50-H PV module
parameters as shown in Table 1.
The PV characteristic of solar module is obtained at different
levels of irradiation and temperature as shown in Fig. 7. and Fig.
8. In Fig. 7. the irradiation G is constant (1000W/m2) and the
temperature T is variable (25, 45, 65◦C). The variation of
temperature T increases the area of MPP region which is the
area under the peak of PV curve of the solar panel and can be Figure 8. PV characteristic of solar module at different
defined by measuring the voltage and the current of the PV irradiation.

12
The value of duty cycle D which controls the boost converter to
track the MPP of PV module is determined by ANFIS controller
at different level of irradiation G and temperature T as shown in
Fig. 9. The number of epochs used for training ANFIS is 100
and the proposed membership functions for both inputs G and T
are 3 and 3 (Small, Mean, Large) as shown in Fig. 10. and 11.
and therefore the total number of rules fired are 9 respectively as
shown in Table 2. The training error obtained from ANFIS is
0.00070269 as shown in Fig. 12.

Figure 12. Training Error.

It is obvious that for each rule, the final output duty cycle can be
expressed in the form of linear combinations of all inputs
irradiation and temperature as shown by:
Rule1: if G is Small and T is Small then D is out1mf1
Rule9: if G is Large and T is Large then D is out1mf9.
Table 2. ANFIS CONTROL RULES
G (W/m2) T
Figure 9. Proposed ANFIS structure.
Small Mean Large
Small Out1mf1 Out1mf2 Out1mf3
Mean Out1mf4 Out1mf5 Out1mf6
Large Out1mf7 Out1mf8 Out1mf9

To demonstrate that ANFIS controller gives more accurate

results with respect to the measured values of duty cycle and the
measured maximum power, it is compared with other models in
[5] as shown in Table 3 and Table 4. The simulation results of
the system are obtained at different levels of irradiation and
temperature as shown in Fig. 13 and 14.
Table 3. DUTY CYCLE VALUES BY DIFFERENT
MODELS
Figure 10. Optimized membership function for input
G T C) Dm [5] DANFIS DFL [5] DNN [5]
variable G.
(W/m2)
861 36 0.46 0.486 0.4167 0.5818
943 44 0.495 0.495 0.5042 0.5862
1000 47 0.4952 0.496 0.5083 0.5879
360 37.3 0.4489 0.454 0.4417 0.3756

Table 4. MAXIMUM POWER VALUES BY DIFFERENT

MODELS
G T Pm [5] PANFIS PFL [5] PNN [5]
(W/m2)
861 36 80.3150 77.9989 74.7367 58.1004
943 44 75.5789 74.8833 76.9609 63.1513
Figure 11. Optimized membership function for input 1000 47 81.6937 80.1633 79.5896 66.7674
variable T. 360 37.3 32.0130 31.7309 31.6543 34.6443

13

Figure 13. Comparison of duty cycle values.
Figure 14. Comparison of PV maximum power values.
One of the most important criteria which may be used to judge
the performance of MPPT model is the efficiency which is
calculated by the following equation and shown in Fig. 15.
(15)
Figure 15. Efficiency of proposed MPPT models.
14
As shown in Fig. 13. and Fig. 14. the measured and estimated
curves are well fitted. ANFIS gives power with minimum total
error compared to FL and NN method which proves that ANFIS
is the best method among the other methods FL and NN. This
result is also confirmed by Table 5 which shows the total error
between the measured values and the estimated values. The total
error between the measured values and the estimated values is
calculated as following:
(16)
∑| |
Table 5. TOTAL ERROR BETWEEN MEASURED AND
ESTIMIATED
Method Duty Cycle Total Error Pmax Total Error
ANFIS 1.7375 1.6375
FL 3.8800 3.1200
NN 19.9875 18.0175
According to the simulation results, the performance of ANFIS-
based on MPPT control is reliable to reach the MPP of the PV
system under the variation of irradiation and temperature levels.
In addition to that, ANFIS effectively performs the tracking
process of PV system maximum power point with reference to
the measured results. The performance efficiency of ANFIS
MPPT control which reaches up to 99% is more than other used
techniques in particular FL and NN MPPT methods.
6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China under Grant 61503348, the Hubei
Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant
2015CFA010, the 111 project under Grant B17040 and the
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China
University of Geosciences (Wuhan), CUG160601.
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