Energy Reports 8 (2022) 5603–5619

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Energy Reports
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/egyr

Research paper

A new implementation of the MPPT based raspberry Pi embedded

board for partially shaded photovoltaic system
Ahmed Fathy a,b , Ahmed Ben Atitallah a,c , Dalia Yousri d , Hegazy Rezk e ,
∗
Mujahed Al-Dhaifallah f,g ,
a
Electrical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Jouf University, Saudi Arabia
b
Electric Power and Machines Department, Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt
c
LETI, ENIS, University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia
d
Electrical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Fayoum University, Fayoum, Egypt
e
College of Engineering at Wadi Addawaser, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia
f
Control and Instrumentation Engineering Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
g
Interdisciplinary Research Center (IRC) for Renewable Energy and Power Systems, King Fahd University of Petroleum &
Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia

article info a b s t r a c t

Article history: The operation of photovoltaic (PV) module under partial shadow conditions considers a big challenge
Received 7 December 2021 for most researchers due to power loss and hot spots that reduce the amount of extracted power. In
Received in revised form 20 February 2022 such an operation, the panel voltage–power curve has a unique global maximum power (GMP) to be
Accepted 10 April 2022
tracked. Therefore, this paper proposes a new maximum power point tracker (MPPT) implemented
Available online xxxx
by Raspberry Pi 4-based embedded board programmed via two metaheuristic approaches of cuckoo
Keywords: search (CS) and particle swarm optimizer (PSO). The approaches are developed using python software
Raspberry Pi board programming language to adapt the duty cycle fed to the MOSFET of DC/DC boost converter connected
MPPT to the panel terminals. The panel is simulated in Simulink/Matlab library to identify the GMP in each
Photovoltaic studied case. An experimental setup is conducted in the lab room of the college of Engineering, Jouf
Shaded PV
University, Saudi Arabia to assess the proposed tracker. Moreover, eight shade patterns are considered
via covering 10% to 80% with step 10% of panel with shadow. Furthermore, statistical tests of the
Wilcoxson sign rank test and ANOVA are conducted to assess the validity of the proposed tracker. The
obtained results are compared to perturb and observe (P&O) and gray wolf optimizer (GWO). The PSO-
based tracker achieved the best efficiency of 96.92%, the CS achieved 93.62%, and GWO get an efficiency
of 93.15%. Additionally, on the side of Wilcoxson sign rank and ANOVA tests, the PSO outperformed CS
and GWO. The results confirmed the superiority of the proposed Raspberry Pi system programmed via
PSO over that of CS and GWO in enhancing the power generated from the panel operated at different
partial shades.
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction parallel to improve the generated current. The performance of the

The increasing demands for energy worldwide and the ex-
pected end of fossil energy resources have emphasized the need
for alternative resources namely renewable energy sources
(RESs). The photovoltaic (PV)-based system gained great attention
and became one of the most important sources among RESs. This
is due to its friendliness to the environment, maintenance free,
and long-term. The PV systems comprise multiple panels that
are connected in series to enhance the terminal voltage and in
∗ Corresponding author at: Control and Instrumentation Engineering Depart-
ment, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi
Arabia.
E-mail address: mujahed@kfupm.edu.sa (M. Al-Dhaifallah).
PV-based system is affected by the surrounding environmental
conditions like irradiance and the ambient temperature. When
the surface of the panel is fully illuminated, the voltage–power
curve of the panel has unique global maximum power (GMP)
which is required to be tracked. One of the negative phenomena
affected by the PV panel is operating under partial shade (PS) con-
dition as it greatly reduces the output power due to the existence
of hot spots on the panel surface. The shade may be placed due to
clouds, neighboring buildings, trees, and adjacent utilities. In such
a case, the panel voltage–power curve has multiple local maxi-
mum power and unique GMP. Therefore, it is essential to install a
maximum power point tracker (MPPT) with the PV-based system
to monitor and extract the global GMP for enhancing the system
performance. Many works have been conducting in designing the

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2022.04.035
2352-4847/© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/).
A. Fathy, A.B. Atitallah, D. Yousri et al.
MPPT with PV system. Motahhir et al. (2020b) reviewed many
algorithms used to simulate the MPPT for shaded PV array, the
authors classified the algorithms to hill climbing (HC), indirect
approaches, and soft computing techniques. However, the merits
and limitations of each method have been clarified. An artificial
bee colony (ABC) based approach was presented to design the
MPPT with shaded PV array (Motahhir et al., 2020a; González-
Castaño et al., 2021). Two sensors are required for current and
voltage in this approach. The Pspice and Matlab were employed to
construct the presented approach. Tey et al. (2018) recommended
an improved differential evolution (DE) approach to monitor the
global maximum power extracted from the PV system, moreover
PSIM has been used to conduct such simulation. Cheddadi et al.
(2018) designed MPPT controller installed in either PV charging
station or in electric vehicles (EVs) on-board charger. The pre-
sented controller is based on a modified perturb and observe
(P&O) algorithm programmed via C-code. Restrepo et al. (2021)
designed the MPPT for PV system using hybrid approach combin-
ing ABC and P&O. This approach was named ABC-P&O. Besides,
a hardware circuit has been presented. Hanzaei et al. (2020)
classified the works conducted in simulating the MPPT for PV sys-
tem to conventional, new, and hybrid approaches, moreover the
merits and shortages of each approach was clarified. Rizzo and
Scelba (2021) employed two stages approach for simulating the
MPPT in PV system, the first stage used artificial neural network
and segmentation-based approach (ANN-SBA), while the second
one used HC method. Diab et al. (2021) introduced a hybrid
approach of whale optimizer and salp swarm algorithm named
(WOA-SSA) to monitor the global maximum power generated
from PV system operated at partial shade. An extensive review
of many works conducted in designing the MPPT with PV system
has been conducted and given in Bollipo et al. (2020), Villegas-
Mier et al. (2021b) and Villegas-Mier et al. (2021a), the authors
classified the methodologies employed in that field to classical,
optimization, and intelligent. In fact, the authors in Villegas-
Mier et al. (2021b) reviewed many works used neural network
and Fuzzy logic-based controller to extract the maximum power
from the PV system. Yang et al. (2018a) used passive fractional
order proportional integral derivative (FOPID) controller as MPPT
installed with PV grid connected system. The employed approach
was P&O. Additionally, a hardware circuit based on dSpace was
constructed to validate the presented approach. Tsai et al. (2021)
introduced a neural network-based tracker to enhance the gen-
erated power from the PV system. Indeed, the authors used
TI TMS320F28335 chip of digital signal processing to validate
the proposed technique experimentally. Sampaio et al. (2019)
introduced MPPT with the aid of four approaches of gray wolf op-
timizer (GWO), GWO-incremental conductance, GWO-Beta, and
P&O to improve the PV system output power. Furthermore, a
feed-forward control loop was implemented to enhance the DC
voltage regulation. A dSpace DS1104 board-based tracker was
conducted to track the peak position of the PV system output
power (Ahmed et al., 2021). Abo-Khalil et al. (2021) presented
an opposition-based learning firefly approach (OFA)-based con-
troller to monitor the global maximum power of PV system
operated in partial shade. Kermadi et al. (2018) used a hybrid
approach with adaptive P&O and particle swarm optimizer (PSO)
as MPPT for PV system. In addition, experimental setup was
constructed with the aid of TMS320F240 DSP on the dSPACE-
DS1104 platform to validate the presented technique. A hybrid
adaptive neuro Fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and ABC were
introduced to track the PV system maximum power. The ABC was
employed to optimize the Fuzzy logic membership function such
that the root mean square error is minimized (Padmanaban et al.,
2019). Additionally, experimental setup with the aid of dSPACE-
DS1104 has been constructed to assess the presented approach.
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Energy Reports 8 (2022) 5603–5619
A FOPID controller optimized via Yin–Yang-Pair optimizer (YYPO)
has been introduced in Yang et al. (2018b) as a MPPT with
the PV system. Hong et al. (2018) designed the PV system
MPPT using Fuzzy logic adapted via chaos PSO. Nevertheless,
the validity of this method was confirmed experimentally using
OP5600 digital simulator. Atmega16 microcontroller-based MPPT
was programmed using constant voltage and P&O approaches to
catch the PV system maximum power (Megantoro et al., 2019).
An approach based on reducing the length of traversing the
operating point on voltage-axis was introduced as tracker for PV
system maximum power (Kermadi et al., 2020). Pradhan et al.
(2020) presented a hybrid technique of modified invasive weed
optimizer and P&O based MPPT installed with PV system to track
its global maximum power. ANFIS-based tracker to adapt the
switching process of boost converter MOSFET was introduced in
Moyo et al. (2021) to enhance the PV system performance. Fathy
and Rezk (2016) presented two metaheuristic optimizers of mine
blast algorithm (MBA) and teaching learning-based optimizer
(TLBO) to simulate the MPPT in PV array operated at partial shade,
different shadow patterns have been analyzed. Two approaches
of PSO and CS were introduced in Rezk et al. (2017) to simulate
the MPPT for PV array operated under different shadow patterns,
the authors concluded that the CS-MPPT is superior than PSO
one. TLBO-based MPPT was also presented by Rezk and Fathy
(2017) to enhance the performance of PV array under partial
shade operation. An excessive review on the state-of-the-art of
many approaches conducted in simulating the MPPT with PV
system was introduced in Rezk et al. (2019), moreover twenty
optimizers were implemented and compared under operating the
array at different shade patterns. Fathy et al. (2018) introduced an
improved TLBO-based MPPT installed with PV panel operated at
partial shadow condition. Furthermore, experimental setup was
constructed using Arduino Uno microcontroller.
An excessive review on the state-of-the-art MPPT for par-
tially shaded PV-based system has been introduced in Yang et al.
(2020). A dynamic leader-based collective intelligent tracker for
PV system operated at partial shade was presented by Yang et al.
(2019a). A memetic salp swarm algorithm has been employed for
simulating MPPT with PV system operated at PSC (Yang et al.,
2019b).
Many conventional and metaheuristic approaches were con-
ducted in simulating the MPPT installed with PV array operated
under shade condition. However, there are some remarks about
most of them, the conventional approaches like P&O and incre-
mental conductance have some shortages in extracting the global
maximum power from the PV panel especially during shadow
conditions as they stuck in local MP. Regarding to the conducted
metaheuristic approaches, some methods relied on optimizers
like PSO, TLBO, GWO, DE, ABC, MBA, and FFA, some of these
approaches lacks the accuracy due to the existence of parameters
that should be tuned via the user. Besides, the others have slow
convergence rate in the search space, and consume large time
and effort during implementation. Additionally, most of reported
approach lack the implementation of hardware. Further, some
other methodologies performed experimental setup with the aid
of simulator that represents the PV system, this lacks the accuracy
and far away from the reality. Table 1 gives the details of the
reported methods conducted in designing the MPPT with par-
tially shaded PV system, the information includes the PV system,
converter type, controller type, the used algorithm and its type,
and the controller type. In this regard, the authors considered
most of the previous works’ shortages via conducting very simple,
costless, reliable, and real experimental setup for the PV system
with MPPT with the aid of Raspberry Pi 4 embedded board. Two
metaheuristic optimizers are selected to program the Raspberry
pi which are particle swarm optimizer (PSO) and cuckoo search
A. Fathy, A.B. Atitallah, D. Yousri et al.
(CS). The results re compared to perturb and observe (P&O) and
gray wolf optimizer (GWO). The authors selected the Raspberry Pi
4 for its competence, high accuracy, and simplicity. The following
points summarize the contribution of this work.
• A new low-cost Raspberry Pi 4-based tracker is proposed to
track the GMP of the PV panel operated at shade pattern.
• Two metaheuristic approaches of cuckoo search (CS) and
particle swarm optimizer (PSO) are developed using python
software programming language, compiled for Cortex-A72
ARM processor and executed on the Raspberry Pi 4 board
through the Raspberry Pi operating system.
• An experimental setup is conducted in the lab room of col-
lege of Engineering, Jouf University, Saudi Arabia to assess
the proposed tracker.
• Eight shade patterns are analyzed, and the results obtained
via both approaches are compared.
• Comparison to perturb and observe (P&O) and gray wolf
optimizer (GWO) is conducted.
• Statistical tests of Wilcoxson sign rank test and ANOVA are
conducted to confirm the validity of the proposed tracker.
• The robustness of the PSO-based tracker is confirmed via the
presented analyzes.
The paper is outlined as follows: Section 2 introduces the mathe-
matical model of the PV system; Section 3 presents the proposed
MPPT embedded system while the metaheuristic optimization
based MPPT is explained in Section 4. Section 5 presents the
proposed Setup of the MPPT embedded system while the results
and analysis are given in Section 6 and conclusions are given in
Section 7.
2. Mathematical representation of PV system
In this section, the mathematical formula of the PV panel is
introduced, it can be modeled by single diode model (SDM) given
in Fig. 1. This is the most popular one that represents the PV panel
physical behavior due to better straightforward. One can apply
the Kirchhoff current law to get the output current from the panel
as follows:
q. (Vm + Rs I )
[ ( ) ] [ ]
Vm + Rs I
I = Ig − Io exp −1 −
aKT Rsh
where Ig and Io denote the photon-generated current and the
reverse saturation current, respectively, q is the electron charge,
a diodes ideality, Vm denotes the module terminal voltage, K
represents the Boltzmann constant, Rs and Rsh denote the panel
series and shunt resistances, respectively.
The value of Ig depends on the level of irradiance that strikes
the PV panel surface; accordingly, it changes according to the
following formula:
( ) ( )
G Rs + sh
Ig = Isc0 (1 + βi (T − T0 ))
G0 Rsh
where Isc0 represents the PV panel short circuit current at G0 =
1000 W/m2 and T0 = 25 ◦ C, G is the actual incident irradiance,
βi is the temperature coefficient of current. In case of partial
shade, the value of radiation becomes less than G0 , this results in
many global maximum powers and one global point, moreover
hot spots are generated on the panel surface that increase the
power loss.
Fig. 2 shows different power–voltage curves of PV panel oper-
ated at fully illumination and various partial shadow conditions. It
is mandatory to operate the panel at its global maximum power,
this can be achieved via installing MPPT with the PV generation
system.
Energy Reports 8 (2022) 5603–5619
Fig. 1. Electric scheme SDM for PV panel.
3. The proposed MPPT embedded system
The direct coupling of the PV panel to the load implies the loss
of the big amount of power. Thus, usually, we are looking to de-
sign an efficient hardware system to extract the maximum power
from PV panel. In this context, Fig. 3 illustrates the proposed
MPPT embedded system based Raspberry Pi 4 board. This system
contains PV panel, current sensor, voltage divider, DC/DC boost
converter, high-precision AD/DA board, Raspberry Pi 4 board and
screen to monitor the system. However, the Raspberry Pi 4 board
is the heart of our designed system. It is selected for a high
accuracy tracking of the maximum power through the Raspberry
Pi operating system (OS) and python software programming lan-
guage which presents the most suitable programming language to
develop a high performant MPPT algorithm such as the PSO and
cuckoo with Raspberry Pi board. Nevertheless, the work purpose
is to compare these two algorithms and to select the suitable al-
gorithm for the proposed system to extract the maximum power
for shaded PV panel. Table 2 presents the electrical specifications
of the PV panel (solar module) used by the considered designed
system.
3.1. DC/DC boost converter
The DC/DC boost converter is inserted between the PV module
and the load to extract the maximum power through controlling
the MOSFET transistor. According to Fig. 4, the converter consists
of input voltage (Vin ), input capacitor (C1), inductor (L), MOSFET
transistor, diode, output capacitor (C2), load (R), and output volt-
(1)
age (Vout ). However, the functioning principle of the converter is
to accept the Vin and control periodically the switching of the
MOSFET transistor through the pulse width modulation (PWM)
signal generated by the MPPT controller in order to provide the
maximum value of Vout . The PWM has a variable duty (D) cycle
as presented by Eq. (3).
ton
D= (3)
T
where T is the periodic time of the pulse train and ton presents
the period at which MOSFET is turned on.
(2) The diode in boost converter is used to minimize loss power
in the converter. The relationship between the Vin and Vout is
illustrated by Eq. (4), as well as for the current is presented
by Eq. (5). Besides, the inductor and the capacitor values are
determined by Eqs. (5) and (6), respectively. Nevertheless, Table 3
reports the reference and the values of all components used to
establish the DC/DC boost converter.
Vin
Vout = (4)
(1 − D)
Iout
Iin = (5)
(1 − D)
D(1 − D)2 R
L= (6)
∆ IL F
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Table 1
Details of reported approaches conducted in simulating the MPPT with shaded PV system.
Author Year PV Converter Controller type Algorithm Meta- Hard- Remarks
system type heuristic ware
Motahhir et al. 2020 PV array Boost NA ABC ✓ NA ABC has slow convergence rate,
(2020a) it may be fall in local optima
Tey et al. 2018 PV array SEPIC NA DE ✓ NA DE is time consuming due to
(2018) parameter tuning by the user
Cheddadi et al. 2018 PV panel Boost STM32F429 P&O × ✓ P&O has low efficiency under
(2018) shadow operation and may
stuck in local MP
Restrepo et al. 2021 PV string Boost hardware-in-the- ABC-P&O ✓ ✓ ABC has slow convergence rate,
(2021) loop it may be fall in local optima
(HIL)
Rizzo and 2021 PV string Full-bridge NA ANN-SBA × NA Large number of current values
Scelba (2021) is required to get the best
operating condition
Diab et al. 2021 PV string Boost NA WOA-SSA ✓ NA Excessive procedures are
(2021) required, this makes hard
implementation in practical.
Yang et al. 2018 PV string NA dSpace based HIL P&O ✓ ✓ P&O has low efficiency under
(2018a) shadow operation and may
stuck in local MP
Tsai et al. 2021 PV array Buck TI ANN × ✓ Excessive data are required to
(2021) TMS320F28335 train the ANN
González- 2021 PV panel Boost TI 28069M ABC ✓ ✓ Shaded operation has not been
Castaño et al. considered
(2021)
Sampaio et al. 2019 PV array Boost TMS320F28335 GWO ✓ ✓ GWO has low solving accuracy,
(2019) slow convergence, and bad
search ability
Ahmed et al. 2021 PV array Buck– dSpace DS1104 Modified IC × ✓ The method requires tuning of
(2021) boost controlling parameters that
may increase the divergence
rate
Abo-Khalil 2021 PV panel Boost dSpace OFA ✓ ✓ The OFA did not investigated
et al. (2021) (Microlabbox) for fast variable solar
radiations.
Kermadi et al. 2018 PV string Buck– dSpace DS1104 P&O-PSO ✓ ✓ The control structure is
(2018) boost complex and costly hardware
implementation
Padmanaban 2019 PV panel SEPIC dSpace DS1104 ANFIS-ABC ✓ ✓ ANFIS is computationally heavy
et al. (2019) and time consuming due to
learning phase
Yang et al. 2018 PV array NA dSpace based HIL YYPO ✓ ✓ In experimental set-up, virtual
(2018b) PV inverter and panels are
considered which is far from
reality
Hong et al. 2018 PV array Boost OP5600 DS FL-PSO ✓ ✓ FL is based on linguistic
(2018) variables which lead to
inaccurate results
Megantoro 2019 Solar Buck Atmega16 CV-P&O × ✓ CV has low efficiency especially
et al. (2019) panel for shaded operation
P&O has low efficiency under
shadow operation and may
stuck in local MP

Kermadi et al. 2020 PV array Buck– dSpace DS1104 MP ✓ ✓ In experimental set-up, virtual
(2020) boost trapezium-FP PV panels are considered
which is far from reality
Pradhan et al. 2020 PV array Buck– OPAL-RT MIWO-P&O ✓ ✓ In hardware implementation,
(2020) boost the authors used simulator to
represent bot PV and controller
Moyo et al. 2021 PV panel Boost NA ANFIS × NA ANFIS is computationally heavy
(2021) and time consuming due to
learning phase
Fathy and Rezk 2016 PV array Boost NA MBA and ✓ NA The presented approaches
(2016) TLBO were not supported with
Rezk et al. 2017 PV string Boost NA PSO-CS ✓ NA practical results
(2017)
Rezk and Fathy 2017 PV string Boost NA TLBO ✓ NA TLBO lacks the local and global
(2017) searches tradeoff, this may
cause falling in local optima
(continued on next page)

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Table 1 (continued).
Author Year PV Converter Controller type Algorithm Meta- Hard- Remarks
system type heuristic ware
Fathy et al. 2018 PV panel Boost Arduino Uno Improved ✓ ✓ Ripple levels in the generated
(2018) TLBO power are high
Yang et al. 2019 Buck– Dynamic ✓ ✓ Dynamic patterns of shadow
PV array dSpace based HIL
(2019a) boost leader-based have been analyzed
collective
intelligent
Yang et al. 2019 Boost Memetic salp ✓ ✓
(2019b) swarm
algorithm

Fig. 2. The PV array characteristics under fully illuminated and partially shaded conditions.

Fig. 3. The MPPT embedded system based Raspberry Pi 4.

Table 2
Specifications of the PV module.
Parameter Value
Ncell 72
Voltage at MPP 18 V
Current at MPP 1.6 A
Maximum power 30 W
Open circuit voltage 21 V
Short circuit current 1.8 A
Fig. 4. DC/DC boost converter.

D.Ioutmax
C = (7) The Raspberry Pi can support several OS. But the common OS
∆Vout F used with Raspberry Pi is Raspberry Pi OS (Youssfi, 2017) which
provides a good and flexible environment to develop any appli-
3.2. Raspberry Pi 4 board cation through numerous software programming language such
as C/C++, Python, Java, etc. The first Raspberry Pi is released
The Raspberry Pi is a small computer system built onto a in 2012 with a 700 MHz processor and 512 MB of RAM. Over
tiny circuit board. It needs an operating system (OS) to work. the years, these specifications are improved which are allowed
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A. Fathy, A.B. Atitallah, D. Yousri et al. Energy Reports 8 (2022) 5603–5619

Fig. 5. Raspberry Pi 4 and GPIO pins.

Table 3
Electrical specifications of the DC/DC boost
converter.
Component Value
MOSFET IRF1407PbF
Diode 1N4007
Inductor L 66 µH
Input capacitor (C1) 470 µF
Output capacitor (C2) 100 µF
Output resistance (R) 150 

the apparition of the Raspberry Pi 4 (Helbet et al., 2020). The

Raspberry Pi 4 shown in Fig. 5 is based on the Broadcom BCM2711
chip which contains a Harvard Quad-core Cortex-A72 (ARM v8)
64-bit system-on-chip (SoC) operating at 1.5 GHz, 32 KB data and
48 KB instruction L1 cache memory per core and 1 MB L2 cache.
Furthermore, the Raspberry Pi 4 comes with 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB,
and 8 GB Low-Power Double Data Rate SDRAM (LPDDR4) which
depends on different versions. Besides, it contains 2×USB 3.0 and
2×USB 2.0 ports which are used to connect the mouse, keyboard
and any USB devices, 2 micro-HDMI ports capable of supporting
up to 4k@60HZ resolution, ethernet port to send ethernet frames
at a rate of one gigabit per second and a micro-SD card slot which
is used for booting up the Raspberry Pi OS and storing data. In
addition, according to Fig. 5, the Raspberry Pi 4 contains 28
general purpose input/output (GPIO) pins, 2 × 3V3 pins, 2 × 5V
pins and 8 ground (0V) pins. The GPIOs allow to connect the ex-
ternal input/output devices with Raspberry Pi board. Apart from
input/output, the GPIO pins can perform a variety of functions
such as PWM which is available through GPIOs 12, 13, 18 and 19.
In Raspberry Pi 4, the input voltage between 1.8 V and 3.3 V is
read as high. But it is read as low if the input voltage is lower
than 1.8 V. A GPIO pin set as output delivers low for 0 V or high
for 3.3 V.
3.3. High-precision AD/DA board
The Raspberry Pi GPIO interface does not contain analog-to-
digital (AD) or digital-to-analog (DA) converter. Thus, to solve this
5608
Fig. 6. AD/DA GPIO interface.
problem, the high-precision AD/DA board (Garg et al., 2020) can
be mounted on Raspberry Pi board to extend the GPIO interface
as depicted in Fig. 6. According to Fig. 9, 8 GPIOs (9, 10, 11, 17,
18, 22, 23 and 24) are used to connect the high-precision AD/DA
board with the Raspberry Pi.
The high-precision AD/DA board allows to add a high-
precision AD and DA functions to the Raspberry Pi through the
ADS1256 and DAC8532 circuits, respectively. Nevertheless, the
ADS1256 is a 24-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC). It provides
a high-resolution measurement solution for the most demanding
applications. It contains 8 × 24-bit high-precision ADC channels
and provides up to 30k samples per second (SPS). According to
Fig. 7, the 8 channels are available through GPIO AD0 to GPIO
AD7. On the other hand, the DAC8532 is a 16-bit digital-to-
analog converter (DAC). It contains 2 × 6-bit high-precision DAC
channels. These two channels are available through GPIOs DAC0
and DAC1 as presented by Fig. 7.
In this work, the authors used the ADS1256 to get the current
and the voltage values provided by the PV panel. Thus, the python
code presented in Fig. 8 permits to read through the Raspberry
Pi board the 8 AD values from the ADS1256 and store it in the
ADC_Value table.
A. Fathy, A.B. Atitallah, D. Yousri et al.
Fig. 7. High-precision AD/DA board and GPIOs connection.
Fig. 8. Python code to get 8 AD values from the ADS1256.
4. Metaheuristic optimization based MPPT
Recently, metaheuristic optimization approaches penetrated
in many applications from which designing the MPPT installed
with PV system. These approaches proved their abilities to extract
the GMP in different shade operation (Fathy and Rezk, 2016;
Rezk et al., 2017; Rezk and Fathy, 2017; Rezk et al., 2019; Fathy
et al., 2018). They outperformed the conventional approaches like
hill climbing, hill climbing (HC), indirect approaches, and soft
computing techniques. In Rezk et al. (2017), the authors applied
two metaheuristic approaches of cuckoo search (CS) and particle
swarm optimizer (PSO) for simulating the MPPT with PV panel
without conducting experimental analysis, they concluded that
the CS-based tracker is superior than the other designed via PSO.
In this work, the authors used both algorithms for simulation and
experimental setup to investigate the previous conclusion in Rezk
et al. (2017). Moreover, comparison to perturb and observe (P&O)
and gray wolf optimizer (GWO) is performed. The main aspects
of both approaches are explained as follows:
4.1. Particle swarm optimizer (PSO)-based MPPT
PSO is an optimization algorithm, which is commonly em-
ployed to track the global MPP of PV system with shading (Sarvi
et al., 2015). The idea of PSO is extracted from the behavior of
birds. It comprises a swarm of particles. Every particle proposes
a solution by exchange the attained data in their search process
to discover the optimal solution (Boutasseta, 2012). All parti-
cles change their locations in the search-space corresponding to
Eqs. (8) and (9). The location of the particle is updated based
on the local best along with the best solution proposed over the
whole population. In the current work, during the optimization
process, the converter duty cycle is used as decision variable
whereas the objective function that required to be maximum is
the PV power. The location of the particle (di ) can be modified
according to the following relation.
di k+1 = di k + vi k+1
Energy Reports 8 (2022) 5603–5619
where the component vi k+1 denotes the updated velocity that can
be defined as follows.
vi k+1 = wvi k + c1 r1 Pbest − di k + c2 r2 Gbest − di k
( ) ( )
(9)
where w denotes the inertial weight, c1 and c2 denote the acceler-
ation coefficients, r1 and r2 denote random numbers, Pbest denotes
the local best, and Gbest denotes the global best.
Fig. 9 presents the optimization procedure by PSO. First,
proper variables must be chosen for the search. The created sam-
ples are implemented with the PVs and the resultant photovoltaic
voltage and current are recorded to estimate the total power. In
case of the current power of particle i is greater than the best
fitness value in history (local best), put current power as the new
local best. Next, select the particle with the maximum power
at all as the global best. Following assessment of all particles,
the velocity and location of every particle can be modified con-
sidering Eqs. (8) and (9). Ultimately, when the end criterion is
achieved, the PSO end the optimization process and provides the
optimal duty cycle related to the global maximum power (Liu
et al., 2012b,a).
4.2. Cuckoo search (CS)-based MPPT
Cuckoo search (CS) algorithm has been proposed by Yang
and Deb (2009). The idea of CS is extracted from brood para-
sitism of cuckoos including intraspecific, cooperative and nest
takeover (Payne et al., 2005). When host bird realizes the cuckoo
egg in the nest, it might damage the egg or leave the nest and cre-
ate another nest. To raise the chance of getting a new cuckoo and
decrease of deserting eggs, cuckoos utilize various approaches for
example mimicking the colors to imitate the call of host bird to
get access to more feeding chance. The mathematical model can
be found in Yang and Deb (2013). The effective feature of CS is
using the Lévy flights. It is an arbitrary move, described by a series
of instant jumps created by a probability density function. The
Lévy flight can be defined as follows.
(8) Lév y (β) = l−β (10)
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A. Fathy, A.B. Atitallah, D. Yousri et al. Energy Reports 8 (2022) 5603–5619

Fig. 10. The optimization process based on CS.

Fig. 9. Optimization procedure of PSO-based tracker.

power (cost function). The duty cycle related to the largest power
where l denotes the length of flight and 1 < β < 3. New eggs are
is selected to be best nest (dbest ). Next, Lévy flight is staged, and
given by executing a Lévy flight from an arbitrarily chosen egg.
new nests are produced as explained in Eq. (11). The produced
A coefficient α is applied for controlling the Lévy flight. There
duty cycles are applied and evaluated over the PV system. Next,
is a vital adjusting parameter to be tuned (pa ). It is the part of
the worst nest is arbitrarily damaged based on the probability Pa .
eggs to be abandoned in every generation. In the current research,
Such procedure matches the actions of the host bird discovering
pa = 0.25 is adopted based on the suggestion by Yang and Deb
the cuckoo’s eggs and destroying them. The new nest is replaced
(2009). The main target is to find the optimal duty cycle related
the destroyed one via Lévy flight. Again, the power is recorded,
to global power. Consequently, during the optimization process,
and best nest is chosen. The optimization procedure is repeated
the duty cycle is selected to design variable. Whereas the cost
till the end criterion is met. Finally, the best duty cycle related to
function to be maximum is photovoltaic power.
Corresponding to the Lévy flight, the duty cycle is modified as global power is obtained.
follows (Yang and Deb, 2013).
( ) 5. The proposed setup of the MPPT embedded system
u
k+1
= di +α⊕Lév y (β) ≈ di +kLévy ×
k k k k
( )
d 1
dbest − di (11) Fig. 11 illustrates the prototype of the MPPT embedded sys-
|v| β tem, the goal of the proposed system is to extract the maximum
where β = 1.5, kLév y denotes the Lévy coefficient, u and v are power from the shaded PV panel. For that, the presented system
defined from the normal distribution curves. The optimization is continuously monitoring and recording the output current and
process based on CS is presented in Fig. 10. At first, numbers of voltage of the PV panel and generates the appropriate duty cycle
the host nests (n) are created and assigned as a duty cycle values. through the MPPT algorithm to control the switching frequency
These values are implemented with the PV system. The related of the MOSFET. However, according to Fig. 11, to measure the
photovoltaic voltage and current are recorded to estimate the current value provided by the PV panel, the ACS712 current
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A. Fathy, A.B. Atitallah, D. Yousri et al.
Fig. 11. Prototype of the MPPT embedded system.
Fig. 12. ACS712 current sensor.
Fig. 13. Python code to read the current value provided by the PV panel.
sensor (Fathy et al., 2018) is used. This sensor operates at 5 V and
produces an analog voltage output relative to the measured cur-
rent. Fig. 12 presents the current sensor board and its equivalent
electronic circuit.
However, the used sensor has an output voltage of 2.5 V at the
input current 0 A and his output sensitivity is equal to 66 mV/A.
The Raspberry Pi 4 reads the value from the sensor through
GPIO AD7 of the high-precision AD/DA board. Fig. 13 presents
the python code used to read the voltage outputs of the sensor
through the GPIO AD7 and converts it to the proportional current
value which is stored in the current_value table.
On the other hand, the measurement of the PV panel output
voltage is conducted by the voltage divider circuit. In fact, the
high-precision AD/DA board GPIO pins work with 5 V logic levels
and are not tolerate more than this value. The voltage at MPP
provided by the PV panel is 18 V, thus a ratio 0.3 is computed be-
tween the Vin and Vout of the voltage divider circuit. Consequently,
as depicted in Fig. 11, the resistor R1 and R2 of the voltage
divider is selected equal to 15 k and 10 k, respectively. Fig. 14
presents the python code used to read the PV panel outputs
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Energy Reports 8 (2022) 5603–5619
voltage from the voltage divider circuit through the GPIO AD6 of
the high-precision AD/DA board and store it in the voltage_value
table.
When, the MPPT python code receives the current and the
voltage values provided by the PV panel, it generates the duty
cycle based on the MPPT algorithm through the Raspberry Pi
PWM GPIO12 pin to control the MOSFET transistor. However,
the Raspberry Pi GPIO pins are designed for use with 3.3 V
inputs/outputs. Thus, the level of the output is very low to control
the switching of the MOSFET transistor. Therefore, the logic level
converter circuit (Yang et al., 2012) is used to increase the level
of the voltage provided by the Raspberry Pi GPIO pins. Fig. 15
presents the logic level converter board and its equivalent elec-
tronic circuit. The HV and LV pins provide the high and low
voltage references to this board, respectively. From 4 channels, it
is possible to shift up or down the voltage by sending the signal
through LV1 to HV1 or HV2 to LV2, respectively (Fig. 15). In our
case, the PWM signal is shifted up from 3.3 V to 5 V to control
properly the MOSFET transistor. Fig. 16 illustrates the python
code used to generate the PWM signal through the GPIO12 pin
at 20 kHz.
A. Fathy, A.B. Atitallah, D. Yousri et al. Energy Reports 8 (2022) 5603–5619

Fig. 14. Python code to read the voltage value provided by the PV panel.

Fig. 15. Logic level converter board.

Fig. 16. Python code to generate duty cycle from GPIO12 of the Raspberry Pi 4.

Fig. 17. Experimental setup of the MPPT embedded system.

Then, the switching of the MOSFET transistor controls the
extraction of the power from the PV panel through the boost con-
verter. The MPPT controller continuously controls the switching
frequency of the MOSFET transistor based on the PV panel voltage
and current outputs until extraction the maximum power.
Fig. 17 shows the experimental setup and the assembly of
the different blocks in the MPPT embedded system. To prove
the effectiveness of the proposed system, several experiments
are realized using the PSO and Cuckoo based MPPT algorithm for
different shaded levels of PV panel. The results provided by these
two algorithms are recorded and stored in the SD card through
the Raspberry Pi OS which are discussed and analyzed in the next
section.
6. Results and analysis
The analysis is performed in two phases, the first one is
simulation while the other phase is practical setup, both are
explained in the following subsections. The analysis is conducted
on a PV panel with specifications given in Table 2, the proposed
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PV system is constructed in Simulink/Matlab as shown in Fig. 18.
The panel is divided into eight rows, each one has 9 cells, this
is to facilitate the presentation of shadow pattern. Perturb and
Observe (P&O), CS, GWO, and PSO-based MPPTs are programmed
and implemented in Matlab, they are employed to tune the duty
cycle of the converter MOSFET. The considered population size
for the considered metaheuristic optimizers is 4, the initial pop-
ulation is selected as 0.08, 0.3, 0.5, and 0.7, and the maximum
iteration is 100. Moreover, the sampling frequency used in the
experimental setup is fc = 30 kHz, while the employed solver is
ode 23tb (stiff/TR-BDF2)) with auto variable-step size. The con-
structed system is investigated on different operating conditions
of fully illumination, 10% (8 shaded cells), 20% (16 shaded cells),
30% (24 shaded cells), 40% (32 shaded cells), and 50% (40 shaded
cells). The GMPs and corresponding voltages and currents in all
studied cases are tabulated in Table 4.
Regarding to the fully illuminated case study, the PSO-based
tracker outperformed the others achieving the best GMP of
18.1598 W, then CS comes in the second rank with 18.1439 W
while the GWO-based tracker is the worst one with GMP of
A. Fathy, A.B. Atitallah, D. Yousri et al. Energy Reports 8 (2022) 5603–5619

Fig. 18. Simulink model of the proposed PV system with MPPT.

Fig. 19. The time-responses of power, current, and voltage obtained via the considered approaches in all studied cases during simulation.

17.3030 W. When eight cells are fully shaded (10% shade pattern),
the PSO-based tracker extracted GMP of 15.0828 W from the
panel while the GWO extracts 14.2889 W, on the other hand the
P&O generated GMP of 15.0546 W from the panel in this case.
The PSO-based tracker outperformed all considered approaches
in simulation results. The time-responses of power, voltage, and
current obtained via the considered approaches in all studied
cases are given in Fig. 19. The curves confirmed the superiority of
the PSO-based tracker as it has less oscillation around the GMP.
The obtained results confirmed the success of PSO-based
tracker in achieving the best GMP for all studied cases followed
in simulation phase.
It is important to investigate the PSO-based tracker via con-
ducting experimental setup, it is the first time to propose a
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Raspberry Pi 4-based tracker programmed via metaheuristic ap-
proaches to simulate the tracker for partially shaded PV system.
Python software is employed to program the considered ap-
proaches, moreover the TENMARS (TM-750) Pyranometer is used
to measure the irradiance. Furthermore, a thermometer is used to
measure the ambient temperature. The experiment setup shown
in Fig. 17 is conducted under the irradiance of a lab room in
the college of Engineering, Jouf University, Saudi Arabia. The
recorded irradiance and temperature are 380 W/m2 and 23.8 ◦ C,
respectively. At the beginning, the mathematical model of the
panel is constructed using Simulink library in Matlab, the surface
of the panel is fully illuminated and the GMP in this case is
18.9050 W, after that eight shade patterns are considered via
covering 10% to 80% with step 10% of panel with shadow. The
A. Fathy, A.B. Atitallah, D. Yousri et al. Energy Reports 8 (2022) 5603–5619

Table 4
Simulink model GMP , duty cycle, VMP , and IMP obtained via different MPPT-based approaches.
P&O CS PSO GWO
Case #
%Shade GMP (W) VMP (V) IMP (A) GMP (W) VMP (V) IMP (A) GMP (W) VMP (V) IMP (A) GMP (W) VMP (V) IMP (A)
1 0% (Fully illuminated) 18.1216 15.9003 1.1397 18.1439 14.735 1.2116 18.1598 16.545 1.0794 17.3030 19.2636 0.4608
2 10% (8 shaded cells) 15.0546 13.1854 1.1418 15.0798 13.0296 1.1573 15.0828 13.1262 1.1491 14.2889 11.5309 1.2392
3 20% (16 shaded cells) 11.9891 10.5160 1.1401 12.0143 11.4244 1.0075 12.0173 10.5374 1.1404 12.0034 11.4351 1.00577
4 30% (24 shaded cells) 8.9384 7.9304 1.1271 8.95214 8.00696 1.1178 8.95232 7.94767 1.1264 8.80332 10.4643 0.09097
5 40% (32 shaded cells) 5.6644 4.8355 1.1714 5.61317 5.9598 0.9378 5.78855 5.7533 1.0061 5.67125 5.8861 0.9635
6 50% (40 shaded cells) 2.9028 2.9529 0.9923 2.37113 1.5179 1.2534 2.9303 2.4648 1.1380 2.80510 3.6355 0.5463

Fig. 20. The curves of (a) voltage–power, (b) voltage current of fully illuminated
and partial shaded panel.

voltage–power and voltage–current curves for all studied cases

via the Simulink model are shown in Fig. 20. The GMPs of all
these cases are noticed and tabulated in Table 5 known by GMP_S.
On the other side, different shades are implemented and the
corresponding GMPs are measured and tabulated in Table 5. The
experimental setup given in Fig. 17 is conducted in both fully
illuminated and partial shade operations, CS, GWO, and PSO based
trackers are implemented and the values of duty, GMP, voltage
at maximum power (VMP ), current at maximum power (IMP ) for
all studied cases are measured and tabulated in Table 5. For Fig. 21. The time responses of (a) duty cycle and output (b) power, (c) voltage
fully illuminated surface, the CS-MPPT extracts 17.5922 W, at and (d) current for fully illuminated PV panel.

duty cycle of 4.830e−4 while the PSO-MPPT generates maximum

power of 17.9057 W at duty cycle of 2.939e−4. On the other
hand, the GWO extracts the PV panel GMP of 17.6104 W at duty
0.0577, it comes in the last rank for this case. There is a great
improvement of the GMP extracted via the PSO more than CS
and GWO. In experimental setup, the shade is represented via
covering portion of the panel. Regarding to 10% shade (8 shaded
cells), the model GMP is 16.5028 W, the CS-MPPT succeeded in
extracting 12.4561 W at duty cycle of 0.0023, the GWO-based
tracker generates 12.7916 W at duty cycle of 0.0366 while the
PSO-MPPT outperformed the CS achieving GMP of 13.9807 W at
1.372e−4 duty cycle.
When 16 cells are covered, the model GMP is 14.0958 W,
the CS-based tracker extracts 9.2058 W, the GWO-based tracker
generates 8.0496 W, and the PSO one provides 9.5294 W. Re-
garding to Table 5, the PSO-based tracker outperformed the CS
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one in all studied cases achieving best GMPs that convergence to
the modeled ones. Figs. 21–25 show the time responses of duty
cycle and GMP for fully illuminated, 20% shade, 40% shade, 60%
shade, and 80% shade cases, respectively. The curves confirmed
the superiority of PSO-based tracker compared to CS and GWO.
It is important to measure the level of convergence between
the GMP obtained from the designed tracker and the other ob-
tained via Simulink model. This is done by calculating the per-
centage of power error (PE) with respect to the GMP obtained
via the Simulink model, it calculated via subtracting the GMP
obtained via the considered approach from that obtained via
constructed model. The values of PEs are tabulated in Table 6. It is
clear the minimum power error obtained via the CS is 6.374% in
case of fully illuminated operation while the GWO gives 6.847%
A. Fathy, A.B. Atitallah, D. Yousri et al. Energy Reports 8 (2022) 5603–5619

Table 5
The optimal values of GMP , duty, VMP , and IMP for all studied shadow patterns in experimental setup.
CS-MPPT PSO-MPPT GWO-MPPT
Case #
%Shade GMP_S (W) Duty GMP (W) VMP (V) IMP (A) Duty GMP (W) VMP (V) IMP (A) Duty GMP (W) VMP (V) IMP (A)
1 0% (Fully illuminated) 18.9050 4.830e−4 17.5922 16.2235 1.0602 2.939e−4 17.9057 16.4899 1.0569 0.0577 17.6104 16.2818 1.0119
2 10% (8 shaded cells) 16.5028 0.0023 12.4561 10.5987 1.1022 1.372e−4 13.9807 12.9631 1.0524 0.0366 12.7916 12.0436 1.0621
3 20% (16 shaded cells) 14.0958 3.270e−4 9.2058 8.5468 1.0697 2.748e−4 9.5294 8.8576 1.0706 0.0441 8.0496 7.6046 1.0585
4 30% (24 shaded cells) 11.6927 3.450e−4 6.0883 5.4121 1.1036 5.269e−4 8.1261 7.2029 1.1098 0.0645 4.9841 4.5082 1.1056
5 40% (32 shaded cells) 9.2927 1.130e−4 4.7966 4.2525 1.0902 4.538e−4 6.4543 5.9527 1.0902 0.0240 4.1890 3.9631 1.0570
6 50% (40 shaded cells) 6.8974 9.500e−4 2.6089 2.3288 1.0395 6.590e−4 3.1719 2.9245 1.0140 0.0080 2.6591 2.4859 1.0697
7 60% (48 shaded cells) 6.4028 3.480e−4 1.4422 1.2580 1.0563 1.000e−4 2.3858 2.1006 1.0674 0.0238 1.5892 1.4520 1.0682
8 70% (56 shaded cells) 6.0590 3.840e−4 1.1651 1.0103 1.1047 1.816e−4 1.8233 1.6774 1.0146 0.0206 1.4857 1.2865 1.0751
9 80% (64 shaded cells) 5.7386 1.000e−4 1.6239 1.5010 1.0629 1.118e−4 1.7437 1.5862 1.0830 0.0413 1.1701 0.9775 1.0105

Fig. 22. The time responses of (a) duty cycle and output (b) power, (c) voltage
and (d) current for 20% shade. Fig. 23. The time responses of (a) duty cycle and output (b) power, (c) voltage
and (d) current for 40% shade.

in that case, and the PSO-based tracker achieved lower PE of

3.082% in the same case. The reader can conclude that, the PSO
outperforms the CS-based tracker and GWO-based tracker in term
of PE for all studied cases.
It is important to calculate the algorithm efficiency to assess
the performances of the considered approaches. The efficiency
(ζ) is calculated via dividing the GMP obtained via the proposed
tracker by that of the constructed model. The efficiencies in all
cases for both CS and PSO are tabulated in Table 6. The best
efficiency obtained via the PSO tracker is 96.92% in the first
case while the CS tracker achieved 93.62%. On the other hand,
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the GWO achieved efficiency of 93.15% for first case. The worst
efficiencies are 13.80%, 20.39%, and 18.19% obtained via CS, GWO,
and PSO, respectively. The results confirmed the superiority of the
PSO-MPPT compared to CS and GWO for practical setup.
It is important to investigate the performance of the presented
Raspberry Pi 4-based PSO tracker during operation at dynamic
irradiance. The irradiance shown in Fig. 26 is applied on the
panel, four intervals are considered, the first one has irradiance
of 95 W/m2 during the first 200 s, the second one is 190 W/m2
during interval [200, 400] s, in the third interval the panel is fully
A. Fathy, A.B. Atitallah, D. Yousri et al. Energy Reports 8 (2022) 5603–5619

Table 6
Power errors and efficiencies of CS-MPPT and PSO-MPPT for all studied cases.
%PE %ζ
%Shade
CS PSO GWO CS PSO GWO
0% (fully illuminated) 6.374% 3.082% 6.847% 93.62% 96.92% 93.15%
10% (8 shaded cells) 32.79% 12.09% 22.49% 67.21% 87.90% 77.51%
20% (16 shaded cells) 44.59% 19.61% 42.89% 55.40% 80.39% 57.11%
30% (24 shaded cells) 42.42% 39.69% 57.37% 57.58% 60.31% 42.63%
40% (32 shaded cells) 65.66% 29.24% 54.92% 34.34% 70.76% 45.08%
50% (40 shaded cells) 62.55% 57.72% 61.44% 37.45% 42.28% 38.55%
60% (48 shaded cells) 77.29% 70.65% 75.18% 22.71% 29.35% 24.82%
70% (56 shaded cells) 82.04% 81.80% 75.48% 17.96% 18.19% 24.52%
80% (64 shaded cells) 86.19% 80.31% 79.61% 13.80% 19.69% 20.39%

Fig. 25. The time responses of (a) duty cycle and output (b) power, (c) voltage
Fig. 24. The time responses of (a) duty cycle and output (b) power, (c) voltage
and (d) current for 80% shade.
and (d) current for 60% shade.

implemented, and the curves of power and voltage are shown in

illuminated at room irradiance of 380 W/m2 , and the fourth in-
terval is the same of the second one with irradiance of 190 W/m2 .
In experimental setup, these intervals are represented as shown
in Fig. 27. In the first interval, the authors covered the first four
columns with keeping only two fully illuminated cells, while the
rest of panel is kept in light. In the second- and fourth-time
intervals (G = 190 W/m2 ), only 16 cells are covered (i.e., oper-
ated at full shade) (Fig. 27(b) and Fig. 27(d)), while the third
interval the panel is fully illuminated. In this case, the presented
PSO-based tracker, CO-based tracker, and GWO-based tracker are
5616
Fig. 28. It is clear that, the time-responses of voltage and power
obtained via the PSO-based tracker are superior to the others.
The obtained GMPs and the corresponding voltages and cur-
rents during the time intervals of irradiance obtained via the
PSO, CS, and GWO are given in Table 7. During the first interval,
the PSO extracted GMP of 7.383 W from the panel, for CS-based
tracker the GMP is 2.374 W, and the GWO-based tracker gener-
ated 4.07 W from the panel. The reader can see that, the PSO
A. Fathy, A.B. Atitallah, D. Yousri et al. Energy Reports 8 (2022) 5603–5619

Table 7
The optimal values of GMP , VMP , and IMP for dynamic irradiance.
GMP (W) VMP (V) IMP (A)
Time interval
CS PSO GWO CS PSO GWO CS PSO GWO
0 < = T < 200 s 2.374 7.383 4.07 2.168 6.622 3.916 1.095 1.115 1.039
200 < = T < 400 s 5.187 11.94 8.337 4.838 10.07 7.89 1.072 1.1857 1.056
400 < = T < 600 s 19.14 21.10 18.99 17.88 18.07 18.07 1.070 1.167 1.051
600 < = T < 800 s 5.613 8.82 7.003 4.35 8.07 7.287 1.290 1.092 0.961

4-based embedded board programmed via two approaches of

cuckoo search (CS) and particle swarm optimizer (PSO). Python
programming language is used to develop both approaches, the
presented tracker is responsible for adapting the duty cycle of
DC/DC boost converter connected to the PV panel terminals. This
aims at catching the GMP of the panel voltage–power curve. The
analysis is simulated using Simulink/Matlab under different shade
patterns, moreover an experimental setup is conducted in the lab
room of the college of Engineering, Jouf University, Saudi Arabia
to assess the proposed tracker at an irradiance of 380 W/m2 and
temperature of 23.8 ◦ C. Different shade patterns are considered
in the analysis via covering 10% to 80% in step 10% of the panel.
Fig. 26. The dynamic pattern of solar irradiance.
Moreover, the panel at full light is also investigated when eight
cells are covered. Comparison to perturb and observe (P&O) and
Table 8 gray wolf optimizer (GWO) is conducted, in case of 10% shade
Non-parametric Wilcoxson sign rank analysis.
pattern, the model GMP is 16.5028 W, the CS-MPPT succeeded in
CS GWO PSO
extracting 11.09194 W while the PSO-MPPT outperformed both
p-value 2.603323e−06 1.7343976e−06 –
CS and GWO achieving GMP of 12.7916 W at 0.0366 duty cycle.
R+ 461 465 –
R- 4 0 – Furthermore, both the Wilcoxson sign rank test and ANOVA table
H Reject Reject – are implemented to assess the two presented approaches. The
best obtained efficiency is 96.92% via the proposed Raspberry Pi
Table 9
4-based PSO while the CS best efficiency is 93.62%, on the other
Friedman ANOVA table. hand, the GWO best efficiency is 93.15%. The results confirmed
Source SS df MS F Prob > F that, the PSO-based tracker is performed well rather than CS,
Columns 21.204 2 10.602 41.6 2.09948e−1 GWO, and P&O for all studied cases. The authors recommended
Error 22.1718 87 0.2548 the Raspberry Pi 4-based PSO as an efficient tool to extract the
Total 43.3755 89 GMP from the shaded panel and this is proved experimentally.
Recent metaheuristic optimization approaches are recommended
for programming the Raspberry Pi 4-based tracker for the large-
outperformed the CS and GWO in all time intervals of dynamic scale PV systems. The authors recommended the application of
irradiance. recent metaheuristic optimization approaches with Raspberry Pi
To statistically evaluate the results by the implemented op- 4-based MPPT installed with PV system in the future works.
timizers (PSO, CS, and GWO), a boxplot is depicted in Fig. 29
to represent the distribution of the fitness function. The figure CRediT authorship contribution statement
proves the efficiency of the PSO in reaching for the higher values
compared to CS. A pairwise comparison test is depicted using the
Ahmed Fathy: Conception and design of study, Writing – orig-
information contained in the stats-based ANOVA test to analyze
inal draft. Ahmed Ben Atitallah: Conception and design of study,
the results statistically, as shown in Fig. 30. The figure affirms
Writing – original draft. Dalia Yousri: Acquisition of data, Writing
an existence of significant difference between the optimizers.
– review & editing. Hegazy Rezk: Analysis and/or interpretation
The data of Table 8 of the non-parametric Wilcoxson sign rank
of data, Writing – review & editing. Mujahed Al-Dhaifallah:
test confirm the superiority of the PSO where the number of
Analysis and/or interpretation of data, Writing – original draft.
ranks where PSO outperforms CS and GWO (R+) are 461 and 465,
respectively, meanwhile, the R- are 4 and 0 accordingly, the null-
hypothesis test is rejected. ANOVA table is reported in Table 9 to Declaration of competing interest
assure the previous observation. The p-values based on the test
is the indicator for an existing significant difference. Based on the The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
aforementioned statistical analysis, the PSO proves its efficiency cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
and superiority. to influence the work reported in this paper.
The results confirmed the superiority of the Raspberry Pi 4-
based PSO tracker in achieving the best GMP from the PV panel
operated at either fixed or dynamic shadow patterns.

7. Conclusions Funding

New construction of a maximum power point tracker (MPPT) The authors acknowledge the support of King Fahd University
for partially shaded PV panel is proposed using Raspberry Pi of Petroleum & Minerals, Saudi Arabia.
5617
A. Fathy, A.B. Atitallah, D. Yousri et al.
Fig. 27. The PV panel under dynamic solar irradiance (a) first, (b) second, (c) third, and (d) fourth intervals.
Fig. 28. The time responses of power and voltage of the panel operated at
dynamic irradiance.
Fig. 29. Distribution of the fitness function by the implemented algorithms.
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