Design and Control of A Low Power DC-AC

Converter fed by a Photovoltaic array

F. Belkacem, D. Diallo Member IEEE and G.A. Capolino Fellow IEEE
Centre de Robotique dElectrotechnique et dAutomatique, University of Picardie Jules Verne
7, Rue du Moulin Neuf, 80000 Amiens, France
Phone: +33 3 22 82 76 80 Fax: + 33 3 22 82 78 22 E-mail: ddiallo@ieee.org
.



Abstract- In this paper, we present a DC-AC converter fed by a
PV array for stand alone applications up to 50W. It is dedicated
to rural areas in countries having abundant sunshine and where
there is no grid connection to the utility network or the power
supply is weak as in many underdeveloped countries. Using a
single PV array of 50W as typical power, the aim is to have a
simple system, robust, free-maintenance and highly efficient for
cellar phone adapter e.g. . The design of the structure has led to
a double boost for the DC-DC module (400V as output voltage)
where a high gain is needed. The DC-AC converter is made of a
half-bridge inverter and an (LC) filter tuned for 50Hz. Using
simulation packages, we have obtained the power components
parameters (inductances, switches and diodes) and set the
switching frequency. For control purposes, a linear controller
(PID type) is used and a non linear approach using sliding mode
are evaluated. Simulation results in terms of robustness and
efficiency are promising.

Index TermsDC-DC converter, Boost, inverter, Photovoltaic, PI
control, sliding mode
I Introduction

A photovoltaic conversion system suitable for AC
load up to 50 W is proposed. In rural areas far from grid
connections or with a weak power network, the system can
be used to supply either a passive load or an active load such
as air conditioning or single phase motor for irrigation pumps
for example [1-2]. The requirements for the conversion
system are:
- a high efficiency because of the high cost of PV
arrays,
- a stable DC voltage output,
- simple, light and free-maintenance.




II - Power system description

The proposed system is shown in block diagram
form in Fig. 1. It consists of a DC-DC double boost converter
and an inverter.

Fig.1: Full system block diagram

The most common AC loads have a 230V AC nominal
voltage. So a 400V DC is required at the output of the DC
converter. The PV array used in our application is a PW500
from Photowatt International whose specifications are:
- typical power 50W,
- voltage 17,2V,
- short circuit current 2.9A ,
- available surface 0.46m
2
.
Therefore the DC stage must be designed to have a high
output to input voltage ratio. This rising of PV voltage from
17.2V to 400V is made by means of two boost type
converters. The double boost converter shown in Fig. 2 has
finally been adopted [3-5]. The ratio is
1 2
1 1
1 1
G

| || |
=
| |

\ .\ .

where
1
and
2
stands respectively for the duty cycle of each
power switch Q
1
and Q
2
.


Fig.2 : DC-DC converter Topology
1161 IAS 2004 0-7803-8486-5/04/$20.00 2004 IEEE


There is no intermediate storage elements to avoid additional
losses and to reduce the weight of the structure.
The AC module is built with a half-bridge inverter and an
(LC) filter without a transformer. The generation of square-
waves is guaranteed by the switching of two MOSFETs Q3
and Q4 alternately. The (LC) filter will select the harmonic
(230V-50Hz) to feed the load.



Fig.3: Power converter Topology


The inverter is driven by an open loop PWM.
The first studies were conducted under simulation using
Pspice

software package. The power components were

chosen and the simulation of the double boost converter in
open loop configuration has been conducted. The models
include components real characteristics to evaluate accurately
the efficiency.
In the power system, MOSFET switches are used. This type
of semiconductors is characterized by high operating voltage
(hundreds of volts) and fast switching mode (hundreds of
kHz). Diodes are of Schottky type.
In the DC stage, power MOSFET IRF640N and Schottky
rectifier 16CTQ100 are chosen for the first boost and power
MOSFET IRFI820G and diode RURD460 are chosen for the
second.
Inductances values calculated from the current ripple and
switching frequency are set to L
1
=1mH, R
L1
=1, L
2
=1.9mH;
R
L2
=0.5 .
In the AC stage, power MOSFET IRFI820G is implemented.
The LC filter parameters are chosen from the following
relation :
The control block is composed of the current mode PWM
controllers UC3842A and IC blocks of op-amps which are
equivalent to the chosen control algorithm (PI or VSC).
After this validation, we have used the Matlab

software to
implement the whole system including the control blocks and
the converter.
The following sections focus on the control of the DC-DC
converter.




III Control System Description

The DC-DC converter state space or so called
topological model is shown in equation (1). Its non-linear
and has two free degrees represented by the switch
commands.
1 1
1 01 01 1
1 1 1 1
01
1 2 1 1
1 1 1
2 2
01 2 02 02 2
2 2 2 2
02
2 02 2 2
2 2 02 2
1 1
+
1 1 1
1 1 1
+
1 1 1
.
i L L
L
L L L
L L
L
L L
V dI R
I V V u
dt L L L L
dV
I I I u
dt C C C
dI R
V I V V u
dt L L L L
dV
I V I u
dt C C R C

(1)

Where u
1
, u
2
are digital control signals.
Two main targets are specified for the control block, first of
all the control scheme must keep the input current i
L1
within
the PV array characteristics and second guarantee a stable
DC output voltage with a low ripple rate. A Maximum Power
Point Tracking strategy [6,7] can be superimposed.
With only to control variables and four states, a suitable
strategy must be used to manage properly the input inductor
current and the output voltage. The inductor current must be
kept within a safety margin depending on the PV
characteristics. The output voltage must be regulated to its
nominal value even in presence of input or load disturbances
and parameter variations.
We have chosen to use only two sensors: one for the input
current and one for the output voltage
The following tables show how to obtain the power switch
command u
2
from u
1
.
Table I
V
01min
V
01
V
01max

I
L1min
u
1
=1 u
1
=1 u
1
=1
I
L1
u
1
=0 u
1
=X u
1
=1
I
L1max
u
1
=0 u
1
=0 u
1
=0

Table II
V
02min
V
02
V
02max

u
1
=0 u
2
=0 u
2
=0 u
2
=1
u
1
=1 u
2
=1 u
2
=1 u
2
=1

For the past few years, many solutions have been proposed
for control system design of DC-DC converters using all the
linear or non linear available control techniques, classical
ones and even fuzzy or ANN [8-10] depending on the
applications.
To evaluate our converter, we have chosen two techniques: a
linear one based on a standard PI and a Variable Structure
1162 IAS 2004 0-7803-8486-5/04/$20.00 2004 IEEE
Control (VSC) which seems to be dedicated to the natural
switching behavior of the converter.
For simulation purposes, the precise topological non linear
model is implemented in Simulink PSB toolbox.
The PV is approximated by a voltage source, the output
current depending on sunshine conditions and load current.
In the following curves, the nominal set point is chosen to be
: 17.2V-2.9A-50W.
a) Linear approach

The first approach is to use the classical linear analysis to
found a suitable controller. Using the average model
approach, we can obtain the small signal state space model
around equilibrium points defined as follows.



The small state variables are denoted I
L1
, V
01
, I
L2
and
V
02
:
1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2
2 2 2 1 1 1 2 2 2
L L L ref o o o ref L L L ref
o o o ref ref ref
I I I V V V I I I
V V V
= + = + = +
= + = + = +

The small state space model is described by the following
equation:
( )
( )
( )
( )
1
1 1
1 1
1
1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1
2 2 2
2
2
2 2 2
2 2 2
2
2
2 2 02
1
0 0
0
1
1
0 0 0
1
1
0
0
1
1 0
0 0
.
ref
L o ref
ref L ref L L
o o
L L o ref
ref
L
o o
L
ref
R V
L L
L
I I I
C C C V V d
I I V dt
R
V V L
L L L
I
C C R

(
(
(
(
( (
(

( (
(

( (
( = +
( ( (
( ( (
( (

(
(

(
(

[ ]
1
2
2
1
1 1
2
2 2
2
0 0
0 0
0 0 0 1
0 0
0 0
ref
L
o
o
L
o
C
I
V
V
I
V

(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(


(
(
(
(
(

( (
( (
(
( (
= +
(
( (

( (
(

We can then obtain the transfer functions
2
1
o
V

,
2
2
o
V

and
therefore build the linear controller.

The pole placement approach is used to determine the PI
controller parameters.
A constant switching frequency is assumed. So the system
can be viewed over a period as the combination of four
different circuits each of them represented by a set of
differential time invariant equations. If we assume
continuous conduction mode, we can show that in our case
(high duty cycles and high switching frequency) the
continuous small signal model is a good approximation of the
discrete small signal model.
In figure 4 (a) , one can see the input current wit respect of
the PV characteristics.
Figures 4(b) and (c) show the voltage regulation performance
for the ideal set point and for input voltage disturbances
introduced at 0.6s.
The controller reveals good robustness properties.


(a)

(b) (c)
Fig.4 : DC DC converter signals with PI controller

The efficiency of the DC-AC converter is evaluated near
83%.
b) VCS approach

The second approach is to use the Variable Control Structure
namely the sliding mode technique to drive the converter.
The inherent robustness [11,12] and the simple
implementation of the controller makes it an attractive
technique.
The sliding surface is chosen as a weighted mean of the state
errors as follows f(x) = k
1
I
L1 +
k
2
V
02

Where [k
1
k
2
] is the gain vector which must be properly
selected to guarantee convergence of f(x) toward zero. The
controller structure is depicted in Fig.5.

1163 IAS 2004 0-7803-8486-5/04/$20.00 2004 IEEE

Fig.5 : Sliding-mode control


The results shown in Fig. 6 validate the sliding mode
controller. The efficiency obtained is rather the same than
with the PI controller.

(a) input current

(b) output voltage
Fig.6 : DC DC converter signals with sliding mode controller

We have also noticed a good robustness of the output voltage
against input voltage variations due to environmental
conditions and also against parameter uncertainties.


V Conclusion

In this paper, we present a DC-AC converter fed by
one PV array for stand alone applications up to 50W. It is
dedicated to rural areas where there is no grid connection to
the utility network. The aim is to have a simple system,
robust, free-maintenance and highly efficient. The design of
the structure has led to a double boost for the DC-DC module
where a high gain is needed (400V DC) without any storage
element. The DC-AC converter is a half-bridge inverter and
an (LC) filter tuned for 50Hz.
The first step of the work was to design carefully the power
components so as to obtain weak losses and therefore a high
efficiency. This has been done using Pspice software
package. The second one was to find the suitable control
method to implement. A comparison has been made between
a standard PI controller and a sliding mode controller .using
only two state variables.
The results obtained show that the PI controller is a solution
to reach our goal despite the non linearity of the converter.
This is mainly due to the fact that in our application the
linear model is accurate enough.
The total efficiency of the DC AC converter evaluated in
simulation (with real components characteristic) is near 80%.
So this solution may be attractive because of the absence of
an intermediate storage element.



VI References

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model for use in power-electronics simulation studies, IEE
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1999.
2. J.A. Gow, C.D. Manning, Photovoltaic converter system
suitable for use in small scale stand-alone or grid connected
applications, IEE Proc-Elecr. Power Appl., Vol. 147, No.6, pp
535-543, November 2000.
3. Maksimovic, D.; Cuk, S., General properties and Synthesis of
PWM DC to DC Converters, PESC89 Record , 20th Annual
IEEE, 26-29 june 1989,Pages:515-525 vol.2.
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conversion range Power Electronics, IEEE Transactions on,
volume: 6, Issue:1, Jan. 1991, pages: 151-157.
5. Huber, L.; Jovanovic, M.M., A Design approach for server
power supplies for networking applications APEC 2000,15th
Annual IEEE, volume 2, 6-10 Feb. 2000, pages 1163-1169.
6. Brambilla, A. and all, New approach to photovoltaic arrays
maximum power point tracking PESC99. 30
th
Annual IEEE,
Volume:2, 1999, pages : 632 637 vol.2.
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12. Slotine, J.J.E; Li, W. ; Applied Non Linear Control Prentice
Hall, Englewoods Cliffs, New Jersey 1991


1164 IAS 2004 0-7803-8486-5/04/$20.00 2004 IEEE