The 30th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial ElectronIcs Society, November 2 6,2004, Busan, Korea

RlSC-Microcontroller Built-in Fuzzy Logic Controller of Maximum Power

Point Tracking for Solar-Powered Light-Flasher Applications
Borpit Tuvirat1
1 l
Noppadol Khaehintung Krisada Pramotung Phaophak Sirisuk2

[Department of Control and Instrumentation Engineering Email: noppadol@mut.ac.th.krisada@mut.ac.th.borpit@mut.ac.th

2Department of Computer Engineering Email: phaophak@mut.ac.th
Mahanakorn University of Technology, Bangkok 10530 THAILAND
Tel: 0 2988 3655 Ext. 218 Fax: 0 29884040

Abstract� This paper presents the development of maxi­
mum power point tracking (MPPT) using a fuzzy logic con­
troller (FLC). By applying the synthetic fuzzy inference al go ­
rithm, the relationship between input and output of FLC can
be effectively stored in a memory-limited lookup table (LUT).
consequence, the controller can be efficiently imple­
As a
A practi­
men ted on a low-cost 16F872 RlSC microcontroller.
cal system found in a transportation industry, particularly II
solar-powered Jight-nasher (SPLF) with built in MPPT using
FLC, is developed. Simulations with practical parameters
show that our proposed MPPT using FLC implemented by
LVT outperforms the conventional MPPT controller in terms
of t racking speed. Furthermore, experimental results are
shown to demonstrate the superiority of the proposed tech­
nique.
I. INTRODUCTION
A problem of energy demand is becoming more and
more aggravated. The limited supply of fossil fuel based
energy has motivated our community to search for alterna­
t ive energy resources. Among those, solar "photovoltaic"
power is a strong candidate in many countries where a solar
power density is relatively high. The term photovoltaic re­
fers to a phenomenon that describes conversion of sunlight
into electricity energy in a solar cell [I]. One of the sectors
that gain benefits from a photovoltaic system is a transpor­
tation industry. Specifically, the operation of safety equip­
ment along roadways requires various fonns of electrical
power supply, which is prohibitively expensive or not ac­
cessible in ma ny remote areas. In this situation, stand-alone
solar-powered equipment is a promising solution.
Perfonnance of a photovoltaic-based system heavily de­
pends upon the capabilities to detennine an optimal oper­
ating point of the solar array at which the maximum power
can be drawn for any given load. Under a certain tem­
perature and light intensity, there is only one single maxi­
mum-power point in a normal cell. Therefore, maximum
power point tracking (MPPT) of the solar cell is essential as
far as the system efficiency is concerned. So far, numerous
MPPT techniques have been proposed ranging from a con­
ventional perturbation and observation m et hod (P&D) [2],
a fuzzy logic controller (FLC) [3] and [4]. to a sophis­
ticated adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) [5].
Although very simple, the perfonnance of P&D method is
inferior to MPPT using FLC or ANFIS [5]. Nonetheless,
MPPT using ANFIS requires a relatively high perfonnance
processor and may not be appropriate for certain applica­
tions, where cost is a prime concern. For FLC, an inference
eng i ne is time-consuming. It is, however, possible to qual­
ify a continuous input variable of FLC with equal interval
according to the limited progression. Subsequently, by ap­
plying the synthetic fuzzy inference algorithm, the relation­
ship between input and output ofFLC can be stored in the a
memory-limited lookup table (LUT).
Recently, several hardware implementations for MPPT
have been presented. A RISC microcontroller was em ­
ployed to realize MPPT using P&O method
in [6] and [7]
which a solar-powered light-flasher and a battery charger
were developed, respectively. Besides, a hill-climbing al­
gorithm, which is similar to P&D method, was also imple­
mented on a RISC microcontroller for an illumination ap­
plication [8]. In [9], an FLC based PV-powered lighting
system was presented. However, the system did not make
full use of FLC.
That is, it only utilized FLC for battery
charge and discharge, while the MPPT still relied upon
P&O technique.
This paper proposes a cost-effective approach to MPPT
implementation using FLC based on 16F872 RISC micro­
controller. Furthennore, the designed controller is inte­
grated into a practical system found in the transportation
industry, namely a solar-powered light-flasher (SPLF).
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. fol­
lowing this, a system configuration of the proposed S PLF is
addressed in Section II. The derivation of the MPPT using
FLC is presented in Section III. In Section IV, the
development ofSPLF is discussed and experimental results
with emphasis on perfonnance of the proposed MPPT us­
ing FLC are given. Finally, conclusion is drawn in Section
V.
11. SPLF SYSTEM
A. The Characteristic of a Solar Array
The characteristic of a solar array can be comprehen­
sively described by its operating curve known as I-V curve.
This specific curv e is usually supplied by manufacturers to
represent the solar array behaviors. It shows the relation­
ship between output voltage and curren t of the solar array
at certain light intensity and temperature as depicted in Fig.
I. It can be observed th at under a certain light intensity and
temperature there is a unique point located at the knee of
the I-V curve, at which the maximum power can be gener­
ated from the solar array. Thus, a mechanism is requi r e d to
track those underlying points so that an optimal operation
of the overall system can be achieved.
The most commonly used equivalent circuit of a solar
cell is shown in Fig. 2. Key equations to the relationship
of eac h parameter wh en internal shun t resistor is neglected
are [2]

0-7803-8730�9/04/$20.00 ©2004 IEEE

2673
 1.0 ....----,--,.. PORIOII----, 10.0 r:����ntal
dPldT'
•

(I) dPldV
-I-V curve

- Power curve
, where

(2)
3:
E
�
u
1----+-----"--�:4="'T-I !R!�l'
� (no
i l:.n
... tell):
o
rIIt�!f)
=
15:H:14
tW�II'
dMC, 3.
=
� ---+-\'\0->.--] � �t � z;r." Q
0 o 00'= �:H
and
5iFh ��n
l� ..
ii:zOllis
=
0Iat
0.0 "'---"---::;--'--
:-:-:-'--::-o:-��
-' 0.0 u. 4 It
=

0.0 Output Voltage (V) 10.0

,D =
(3)
�)(")w=,,,e
fig. I. I-V and power curves under light intenSity of IOOmW/em'
, where V den ote s an output voltage of a solar array, I de­ and temperature of 25°C.
not es a current of a solar array, A denotes the ideality fac­
tor, k is the Boltzman's constant (J/K), T is a cell tempera­
ture (K), Tr is a reference temperature (K), q denotes an
electron ch arge (C), EGO is band-gap energy of silic on (1-3
eV), KJ denotes a short circuit current temperature coeffi­
cient at Is< (AfC), ILG denotes a light-generated current
(A), lor denotes a cell saturation current at Tr (A), los de­
notes a cell reverse saturation current (A), I,e denotes a Fig. 2. An equivalent circuit ofa solar ceIL
short-circuit current at 2SoC and IOOmW/cm2 (A), ..t de­
notes a light intensity (mW/cm \ ns is a number of series Sol.,. Array J

is a number of parallel string in

D, l. D,
string in the solar array, np

the solar array and Rs is a series resistance (n).

B. System Configuration
Fig. 3(a) depi cts the configuration of an SPLF system, a
key of which is 16F872 RISe microcontroller. The system
r-------- - --
also comprises a solar array, battery bank and boost con­
verter. In our design, the controller performs three main j
functions. Firstly, it determines a duty ratio D for a switch S L�������:'�:�� ..I

in the boost converter, in order to moves an operating point (.)

_________________________

of the solar array as close to the maximum power point as

possible. To this end, MPPT using an FLC, which will be
discussed later, is employed. Secondly, the con tro lle r con­

sistently de tects the battery to avo i d battery-overcharge.

Finally, it prov ides a logi c sequence (LSQ) to LED net­
works depending on battery voltage level.
The SPLF software -flowchart is illustrated Fig. 3(b) in
which V", denotes a battery-overcharge voltage and Vlim
denotes the v oltage in the proximity of V.e,. Three d ifferent
LSQ's (pattern 1-3) are generated in accordance with op­
eration time and is shown in Fig. 4. Pattern I and 2 are
designated for nighttime and daytime operations, re spe c ­
In addition, pattern 3, which consumes maximum Fig. 3. The proposed SPLF system (.J hardware block diagram.
(b)
tively.
power, is generated when the battery level reaches a certain (b) software flowchart.
threshold to avoid battery-overcharge.

defined an error function as

III. MPPT USING Fuzzy LOGIC COl\'TROLLER

Generally speaki ng, MPPT attemp ts to move an opera­ P(n)-P{n-I)

tion po int of a solar array as close to the maximum po w er ec(n) (4)
point or the 'knee of the I-V curve shown in Fig. 1 as possi­
V{n)-V(n-I)
ble. Mathematically, this is equivalent to finding the point
where the derivative dPldV is equal to zero. In practice, a also, the associated change of error is defined as
digital system where output voltage and current at con­
secutive time interval n-I and n are sampled is employed
( 5)
to search the peak power point of a solar array, firstly

2674
 TABLE I
LED
A Fuzzy RULE BASE TABLE OF cD(n)
Networks

NB NS ZE PS PB

NB ·P$ :,' P13

NS iPS PS
ZE ,NS NS ZE PS
LSQ's (solid line: pattern 1; dashed line: pattern 2; and thin line:
"

Fig" 4.
pattern 3).
PS NB NS NS NS NB
PB NB NB NS NB NB

TABLE 2
i 1txJ6<>< NS ZE PS PB

a
.�!1!J
.,E 2
...�
]'.'B A LOOKuP CONTROL TABLE OF THE PROPOSED MPPT USING FLC

-5 -4 -3 -2
t.eJn)
-I 0 J 2 3 4 5
���
r
5� -5 II 11 II 11 8 5 8 li II 11 11
�E 5 .. -4 11 10 10 10 7 5 7 10 10 10 II
e,tn) and change of error M,{n)
-5 -2 0 2
variation of error -3 II 10 9 7 6 5 6 7 9 10 1\
(a) -2 11 10 7 5 5 5 5 5 7 10 11
-I 4 3 2 0 I 2 4 5 6 7 8
i :5 0 -5 -5 -5 5 -2 0 2 5 5 5 5

.g
� i
It\6
B 66! NS ZE PS PB
<if
I -8
2 -11
-7
-10
-6
-7
-

-5
-5
-4 -2 -1
-5 -5 -5
0
-5
-2
-7
-3 -4
-10 -II
.�'e 3 -II -10 -9 -7 -6 -5 -6 -7 -9 -10 -11
1: 4 11 -10 -10 -10 -7 -5 -7 -10 1 0 -10 - 1 1
i -9 -4 0 4 9 15 ..
- -

variat}Oll of change of duty ratio AD(n)

-15 5 -11 -11 -11 -II -8 -5 -8 -II -II -II -II
E

(b) system. Firstly, the product operati on is adopted to obtain

Fig. S. Membership function Of(3) error 14"", and change of error )1.",,"\.
the output fuzzy s et ,lI,w for each rule_ The sum operation is
(b) duty ratio }Is",.,.
then adopted to combine each output fuzzy set ,lIw into a
single fuzzy set. Finally, through the defuzzification pro­
The controller endeavors to force the error function,
cess and us ing the centroid method, a crisp value for ,wen)
which is the derivative of power with respec t to the meas­
is obtained by [10]
ured voltage, and its associated change of error to zero_
Thus an optimal operation point can be obtained. Instead of
finding the underlying derivative, MPPT can also be
(7)
achieved by means of fuzzy logic. Let us denote a duty ra­
tio of the switch S in Fig. 3(a) as Den). With reference to
the I-V and Power curve depicted in Fig. 1, the fuzzy meta­
rule used for MPPT can be stated as [3]: "{{the last change , where wFlllin[,u"c(ec(n»,,lIM,(lle,(n»] is the compatibility
(weighting factor) and !J.l)! is a value corresponding to the
(D(II») has caused the power
membership function of ADen). Therefore when input vari­
in the duty ratio (eln»)to rise,
keep moving the duty ratio (D(n» in the same direction;
,

otherwise, ifi! has caused the power to drop move it in the

ables e,(n) and llec(n) are both chosen in the interval [-5,5]

direction." This can be translated into the fol­

which is di vi ded into 11 sub-intervals, the LUT e nds up
with the dimen sion of 11 x II entries,
opposite
lowing fuzzy control rule: as shown in Table II.
The output of LUT is the change of duty ratio till(n), w hich

Rule (i) : if e,Cn) is Ai and McCn) is Hi is converted to the duty ratio D(n) by
then ,w(n) is C;, (6)
D(n) =D(n-l) +L\D(n) (8)
, where Ai. B;, and Cj rep res en t fuzzy sets incl ll ding positive
big (PS), positive small (PS), zero (ZE), negative big (NS),
a nd negative small (NS)- Fig_ 5 sh ows the membership
functions of the i np ut variables e,( n) and llec{n) and the IV. RESULTS
output variable !J.l)(n)_ Also, Table 1 c ol lects the fuzzy rule
for till(n)_ Note that the membership function of each fuzzy
A. MPPT Simuiations.
set is select ed based on trial-and-error such that the region
of interest is covered appropriate Iy_ The system depicted in Fig. 3(a) was s imulated using
For any given input pa i r of (ec(n),t.ecCn», the crisp value SIMUUNK'" software [11] to evaluate the performance of
of controller output ,wen) is calculated by fuzzy inference the proposed MPPT controller using FLC in comparison

2675
 Fig. 6. System simulation of MPPT (Boost Converter. MPPT controller and Battery).

9
6r---T�
: �
t ��1�;
. 5� 0�m�s'--
· --r- ==
: --�r.=..=..I.=p & o�m=ffih
==�
Od
==� .l l TABLE 4
POWER CONSUMPTION OF SYSTEM
. : : - FLCmethod
I
.
e- 5c:y=!�'��"."""'�'--""�""'" ---- Maximum Powe�
LSQ Power Light Density

.
Generator

.
r: : p
.
Pattern Consumption
�.32W
1
>, . • .

� "'�""·. "i,,,��,f -- :j,: /:+. - ;......--.+ --.+----..

1.00W 1000LUX
. . .. ..
2 1.68W 17S0LUX
.��
4 .. . . 3 2.40W 2500LUX
:5 , -- ... L L--... }--/.L..-- .. L------} ... L----.. ; .. .

12 -..� .- - J :/.y.:'.- .:.--.. ·1--.----1-- :. . .J.

. -

B. SPLF hardware prototype

· ·
- ... . .

.
.. -

Hardware prototype of the SPLF discussed in Section II

a.. : : : :
: /

was constructed and is depicted in Fig . 8(a). The system

- '···. ·
! tl�)//·····'··r··I·· ··· .,.·T
consists of a low-co st PICI6F872 rusc microcontroller
' [13], a boost converter, a battery, a solar array and LED's
0 array. The b oost converter circuit comprises one inductor
Time (sec)
0 0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00 1.25 1.50 1.75 2.00 2.25
and two capacitors as described in the previous sub-section.

Fig. 7. The simulation results ofP&O and FLC method. Besides, two schottky diodes DI and D2 are used and power
MOSFET BUZII is chosen as a switching devic e S oper­
ating at 46kHz. Note that the battery is a commercial-grade
SOLAR ARRAY PARAMETERS
TABLE 3
device rated at l2V, SAhr. Fig. 8(b) shows an installation
Variable Definitions of a complete SPLF in a real environment.
2.40000x10
1 The power consumption of the system was investigated.
Our experiments revealed that the control unit inCluding
nD

ns 1 60000x I 0 1
k 1 . 70000x 1 O'�
. boost converter consumes only 35mW. Moreover, power

Ise 7 .92000x 10.3

consumption of LED's array is given in Table 4 for each
O LSQ described in Section n.
A 1.1 9050xlO
lor
5
C. Performance ofMPPT using FLC
1.42640x1O·
Rs
0
1.00000x 10
For performance evaluation, software was developed
with a conv enti onal MPPT using P&O technique. The solar using C-programrning language. The proposed MPPT
array model described in Section II with its parameters u sing FLC was compared with the conv entional MPPT us­
given in Tab l e 3 was involved. In addition, the boost con­ ing P&O algori thm in terms of tracking capabilities. Note
verter circuit comprises one (£0= 15mH), two capacitors that the MPPT using FLC was realized by m eans of LUT as
(C1=C2=lOO,uF), and the battery model used in simulations described in the previous sub-section. Due to the unavail­
was the lead-acid mathematical model [12], Fig. 6 ill us­ abil ity of its I-V curve, a characteristic of the solar array
trates a sim ul ation model for MPPT system. Note that the was firstly investigated. To this end , the array was tested
MPPT block in Fig. 6 represented P&O method and then under an en v i ronme nt where a light intensity and tempera­
2
FLC using LUT controller. The array was tested under an ture was 80mW/cm and 40·C, respectively. By varying the
environment where a light intensity and temperature were duty cycle (D) of b oo st converter from 0 to 99%, it was
2
80mW/cm and 40·C, respectively. It was found that the found that the solar array p roduced the peak power of
solar array produced the peak power of 4.32W. 4.32W as depicted in Fig. 9.
From the results, it is apparent that our proposed MPPT Using the solar array whose characteristics described
controller using FLC implemented through LUT outper­ above, tracking performance of MPPT obtained from the
f orms the conventional P&O MPPT in terms of conver­ proposed FLC and the conventional P&O algorithm was
gence speed. Particularly, a rise time (t,) of the FLC was examined. In the experiments, a light source was tumed on
150ms while the conventional P&O was 1,2S0ms as de­ at t=Os and trac ke d powers from both controllers were ob­
picted in Fig. 7. It should be noted that a samp ling time for served using a digital storage oscilloscope. F ig 10 and Fig .
1 1 illustrate the tracked po wers obtained from P&O con-
both algorithms was selected to be IOms. .

2676
 (a ) (b)
Fig. 8. SPLF (a) hardware prototype. (0) on-site installation.

v Oms

Fig. 9. Output volUlge, current and power of the solar array under a light Fig. 11. Tracked power from MPPT using FLC.
M.tn 5 vv s vv

intensit), of 80mW/cm and temperature of 40'C.

'

�--+���
�.+����"�.'---� ��
V��I . I-
V=5VI
Refl Mean

i
12.98 Y

DIV -f'
Rlf - .

ChI Fr.q

i.1J1JCJ
4�.9tkH>
LO\� signal

�" . .
M amplitude
. ChZ \lean

(O.83Vi
�34.SmY

lL1��-rW�� 1
•• ••

i­
HIDA)

. .f.
r

L 1 5 U ...s C J 2.6 V
ReI! 10 Y

Fig. J O. Tracked power from MPPT using P&O method.

Math 5 vv

troller and the proposed FLC, respectively. It should be achieved from our proposed FLC is only 150ms, ap­
noted that a sampling time for both algorithms was selected proximately. That is tracking speed is significantly Im­
to be 10ms. With reference to Fig. 10 and Fig. 11, it can be proved by eight times.
seen that while the rise time of tracked power of the con­ As regards the overall efficiency of MPPT using FLC,
ventional P&D is approximately 1,250ms, the rise time the steady state power was studied. The DC-link voltage

2677
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2678