Efficient Control based on FL-MPPT and FCS-MPC with EKF for a Standalone Photovoltaic Water Pumping System using PMDC Motor Drive

This study proposes a powerful strategy to control a standalone photovoltaic (PV) water pumping system based on a permanent magnet DC (PMDC) motor drive. The system comprises a PV array, DC-DC boost converter, PMDC motor, and a centrifugal pump. The control approach uses a fuzzy logic maximum power point tracking (FL-MPPT) method and two control loops. The first is based on a proportional-integral (PI) controller to regulate the output PV voltage at its reference value; generated by the FL-MPPT technique and estimate the reference inductor current. The second forces the inductor current to follow its reference by a technique which combines the finite control set model predictive control (FCSMPC) with an extended Kalman filter (EKF). The EKF is used to estimate both the inductor current and the motor voltage and it can reduce the number of required sensors, which reduces the system cost. The effectiveness of the proposed system is verified via simulation in steady state and dynamic operating conditions.