System Maximum Power Tracking among Distributed Power Sources

Presented herein is Uniform Input Voltage Distribution (UIVD) control [6-9] for Distributed-Input Series-Output (DISO) converter power systems. The primary control objective of UIVD for DISO converters is to achieve grouped maximum power throughput from non-identical renewable power sources. Secondly, this paper features a revised Maximum Power Tracking (MPT) controller design developed for DISO configurations that facilitate simultaneous processing of distributed power flows. In earlier research, the distributed source peak powers are individually tracked by converters controlled by independent MPT controllers without UIVD. However, when distributed power sources have similar peak power voltages with an achievable tracking efficiency of greater than 96%, such independent MPT controllers are not necessary. By utilizing UIVD control, near-maximum use of available power is achieved using a single MPT controller. The resulting system and control architectures offer near-maximum power transfer with a lower parts count. Two DISO power converter bus architectures are described herein: one having a battery-dominated output voltage and the other with a regulated output voltage. Through computer simulation, both power architectures are validated for fault-tolerant grouped UIVD control.