Sliding mode control schemes in DC-DC converter for photovoltaic maximum power point tracking

As a renewable energy source, photovoltaic (PV) systems can help reduce environmental impacts from fossil fuel usage.However, PV conversion efficiencies remain relatively low.Power electronics controllers play a vital role in optimizing PV system efficiency and performance.This study investigates using sliding mode control techniques to improve tracking of the maximum power point (MPP) in PV systems.Sliding mode offers robustness and stability benefits for power converters.Both single-loop and two-loop control architectures are examined.The single-loop scheme extracts MPP rapidly without needing a defined reference, while the two-loop includes both MPP tracking and search control loops.For the two-loop search, an optimized version of Cuckoo algorithm is proposed.The PV system models and controllers are simulated to compare performance.The single-loop controller reacts quicker under uniform conditions but can get trapped at local maxima.The two-loop controller converges on global MPP better under partial shading.Further opportunities exist to address practical implementation challenges of the sliding mode PV controllers.