2010 International Conference on Industrial Electronics, Control and Robotics
Design of a DC – DC Converter for a PV Array
Santosh Hariharan
Department of Electronics and Communication
Amrita School of Engineering, Amrita University
Bangalore, Karnataka, India
harisan9@gmail.com
Abstract— In today’s world, as non-renewable sources of energy
deplete fast, there is an urgent need to switch onto alternate
sources of energy. Solar energy is a widely used, popular and
viable alternate source of energy. In off the grid sectors such as
remote rural areas; solar energy can be used for irrigation
pumps which require about 240V ac supply, but owing to its low
output power it is insufficient to drive high current loads such as
pumps, motors etc. Hence we provide circuitry to amplify a low
input voltage of 17.2 V, obtained from a solar panel and boost it
to 325V dc by the use of multiple boost converters in cascade to
provide the required gain. Attempts are made to configure and
maintain a steady DC output voltage in spite of variation of solar
voltage or any load changes by the use of PI controller. The
circuit has been simulated in MATLAB/SIMULINK and the
results are shown. The method used here scores owing to its
simple construction, working and is efficient too.
Keywords- Boost converter, PI controller, Photo Voltaic array,
Pulse Width Modulation (PWM).
I. INTRODUCTION
We have proposed a photovoltaic conversion system
suitable for AC or DC load. In rural areas which are off the
grid and have a weak power network, the proposed system
(refer figure 1) can be used to supply either a passive load or
an active load such as air conditioning or single phase motors
or irrigation pumps. The basic requirements for the conversion
system are defined below:
• High efficiency owing to the high cost of solar arrays
• A stable 325 V DC voltage output
• Simple, light and free-maintenance
Figure 1. A general diagram of our proposed model for AC or DC load.
978-1-4244-8546-8/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE
V Naveen Kumar(Student Member,IEEE)
Department of Electronics and Communication
Amrita School of Engineering, Amrita University
Bangalore, Karnataka, India
vnaveenkumar@ieee.org
Since our system involved solar panels which provide a
very low output voltage, the converter essentially needs to
have a large gain, while keeping the hardware as simple as
possible. Somewhat surprisingly, we observed that low-input
power converters have not been widely discussed in such
design applications oriented industries. In [3], a 0.3 V
thermoelectric generator was used for power scavenging. Its
authors investigate a few different circuit topologies for power
coming from a single solar cell; however the startup problem
was not handled in a practical method. Several issues which
were encountered with their (high-power) system were
discussed in some detail. It is proven that the efficiency of the
basic power converter circuits such as buck, boost, etc. have
been well established in the recent years and we will continue
experimenting with the same.
Existing ICs for the same purpose, like Texas Instruments’
TPS 61200, are provided for low input Dc- Dc conversions.
However they do not have a very high output voltage (as per
our requirement) nor do they function at a high frequency.
They also have efficiency problems at high frequencies.
Although the data sheet mentions applications including solar
cell powered products, the maximum output voltage which it
can provide is a low 5.5 V, which is unsuitable for the
applications mentioned as our objective.
Our circuit here tries to address the above mentioned
problems in a simple and an effective manner, ensuring that
the use of hardware components are as minimal as possible,
thus cutting the costs. A steady output voltage is ensured with
the help of a PI controller.
II. OPEN LOOP CIRCUIT
A. Design
The open loop circuit diagram is shown in figure 2.
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 3) Mode 3: Referring figure 5, in this mode both switch 1
and switch 2 is OFF and hence both D1 and D2 are ON.
Hence both L1 and L2 are discharging. Inductor L1 discharges
and supplies current to C1. The capacitor voltage is input to
boost 2. The current from inductor L2 as well as from
capacitor C1 charges C2. C2 maintains a load current constant
at IA , while maintaining the load voltage at 325V with
minimum ripples.

Figure 2. The Open Loop circuit.

The circuit has three different modes of conduction. They
are explained below:
1) Mode 1: Referring figure 3, which shows the open loop
circuit [1] in mode 1 i.e. switch 1and switch 2 both are ON,
hence D1 and D2 are reverse biased. Hence, Vin charges the
inductor L1 in this mode. Assuming continuous conduction,
the capacitor C1 already charged to Vin supplies current IL2 to Figure 5. A circuit working in Mode 3.
charge L2. The capacitor C2 supplies current Ic to maintain
constant load current IA in RL. We assume C1 and C2 to be The State Space Equations for the Various Modes are given
very large for continuous conduction. below: (variables based on Figure 2 and Figure 3)
ௗ௜௅ଵ ௏௜௡
ௗ௧ ௅ଵ
 ௏௢ଵ
௅ଵ
 ௏௢ଵ
௅ଵ
1 (1)

ௗ௏௢ଵ ௜௅ଵ
ௗ௧ ஼ଵ
 ௜௅ଶ  ௜௅ଵ 1
஼ଵ ஼ଵ
(2)

ௗ௜௅ଶ ௏௜௡
ௗ௧ ௅ଶ
 ௏௢ଶ
௅ଶ
 ௏௢ଵ
௅ଵ
2 (3)
Figure 3. A circuit working in Mode 1.

2) Mode 2: Referring figure 4, mode 2 is defined as switch ௗ௏௢ଶ ௜௅ଶ ௏௢ଶ

1 ON and Switch 2 OFF. Hence in this mode, we specify, L1
as charging and L2 as discharging, D1 is reverse biased, while
D2 is ON. Since Vin is low, L1 needs to charge more. Also, it
cannot provide high current, as that would draw more current
from the PV array, which may exceed its’ maximal
characteristics. L2 discharges to charge the capacitor C2. The
capacitor maintains the load current IA, by taking the excess
inductor current onto itself and charging itself.
Figure 4. A circuit working in Mode 2.
ௗ௧ ஼ଶ
 ோ௢ଶ஼ଶ  ௜௅ଶ
஼ଶ
2 (4)
B. Experimental setup and Simulation
The circuit was simulated on MATLAB/SIMULINK, v7.9,
on Windows platform. Here we explain how the different
components were extracted and simulated. The simulated open
loop circuit diagram is shown below (Figure 6).
The experiment used different components and these
components are explained below:
1) RLC Components: The RLC components used were
taken from ‘series RLC branch’ from SimPowerSystems. The
values chosen are tabulated in Table I. A high load resistance
was chosen to emulate the effect of high loads during practical
use.

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 2010 International Conference on Industrial Electronics, Control and Robotics

Figure 7. Open loop stage 1 Voltage and Current output

Figure 6. Open loop circuit diagram

2) Solar A 17.2V Solar Panel was constructed
Panel:

using six Solar cells in series each having an open circuit

voltage of 2.867V. We used a constant irradiation of 1000
W/m which is the average solar energy the earth receives per
2

day. This constant irradiation is also varied about -20% to

check for change in output voltage.
3) The switches used were MOSFETS from
Switches:

SimPowerSystems. The FET resistance was 0.1 Ω. A pulse

generator was used to give gate signals to the MOSFETs. The
details of the duty cycle and input frequency are tabulated in
Table I.
TABLE I. OPEN LOOP DESIGN PARAMETERS [1] Figure 8. Open Loop Load Voltages and Currents.
L1, r1 1.36mH,1Ω
TABLE II. LOAD CURRENTS AND VOLTAGES ( OPEN LOOP )
L2,r2 1.36mh, 1Ω
C1 96µF IL1 8.8 A
C2 100µF IL2 0.1 A
Switch1 89%,21.8kHz VO1 69 V
Switch2 76%,21.8kHz
R load 3.25 kΩ VO2 325 V

The circuit shown (figure 6) was simulated with a POUT 32.5 W

simulation time of 2 seconds with ode45 solver configuration.
The Figure 7 and Figure 8 show the load currents and voltages The open loop settling time of the circuit was found out to
at the outputs of stage 1 and 2 respectively. be 0.4 seconds.
The load currents, load voltages and load power (at steady
state) are tabulated in Table II. C. Need for Closed Loop

To investigate the effect of a sudden load change in the

circuit, we introduced a load change of about -23% at time t =
1 sec for a duration of 0.5 seconds. Load change was

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introduced by shorting a 1 kΩ resistor (series with the load) at set-point. As our application may be prone to load changes
with the help of appropriate diode circuitry across the 1 kΩ a feedback circuitry is essential for maintaining a constant
resistor (shown in figure 9). The load current and load voltage load voltage.
waveforms are shown in figure 10.
III. CLOSED LOOP

We chose a PWM control of the switches as they are highly

non linear and control of the output voltage can be fairly easily
achieved by controlling the duty cycle of the pulses, and hence
the time for which the switches conduct. The PWM control
was achieved after putting a PI controller in our circuit for
proper error control. PI control was chosen for our circuit as
proportional controller gave enough initial velocity and the
integral controller maintained offset to the minimum.
Derivative control was not required as dead time was not
found in our circuit.
A. Control of a single switch
Primarily, we tried to control only the second boost to keep
the output voltage at set-point which was done by taking the
reference value of the output voltage as the set point.
Controlling the first switch could lead to drawing of excessive
current from the solar panel. Hence the first boost ran on
default PWM generator while the second boost’s switch was
given PWM pulses generated as per the following algorithm.
• Measure the output load voltage.
• Compare with a set point of 325 V using a summing
block.

• Feed the error voltage to a PI controller (block

shown).
Figure 9. Load change circuitry.

• Compare it with a saw tooth reference waveform of

the same frequency as open loop pulse generator.
• Convert the pulses to suitable voltage using data type
conversion.
• Feed it to the gate of the second switch.
The circuit diagram for the above explained algorithm is
shown in Figure 11. The load voltage and current waveforms
for the same are shown in Figure 12.

Figure 10. Load voltage and Load currents after a step change in load.

As we can infer, the load change caused a step change in

the output voltage (voltage drop10 % down), undesirable in
many cases. Hence we need a feedback circuit (compensator)
to control the output voltage and maintain the output voltage

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 2010 International Conference on Industrial Electronics, Control and Robotics
B. Double switch control

Controlling the first stage can be done in two ways:

• By controlling IL 1 to PV maximal characteristics.
• Maintaining stage 1 output voltage at required
reference voltage.
The option 1 did not work as controlling duty cycle of
switches did not prove efficient in maintaining the current at
set point as switches are non linear elements. Hence we moved
on to the second option. Here we maintain the stage 1 output
voltage at 69 volts (open loop voltage). The same PWM
generating algorithm mentioned previously was used here
also. The two PWM controllers were independent of each
other. Each PI controller block was tuned (K and K tuned) to
P i

achieve the respective set points. This option proved efficient

in controlling the load voltage. The second boost maintained
the load voltage constant within 2.5 percent of set point at 315
volts in spite of a load change.

Figure 11. PWM control for Switch 2

The final circuit is shown in figure 13.

Figure13. Double switch control.

Figure 12. Load output waveforms for single switch control.

We observe that the output goes below set point and were
uncontrollable. One important observation was that although
stage 1 was untouched its output voltage and output current
was also affected, which led us to the conclusion that there
was an inverse effect from boost 2 to boost 1. Hence a double
switch control is essential and a single switch control is not
enough.

Figure 14. Final output waveforms.

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Figure 15. PI output and Pulses.
The final output waveforms and the pulses generated are
shown below (figure 14 and figure 15). The K and K values
p i
are 6 and 0.01 respectively.
IV. OBSERVATIONS
Although the controller gives an offset, it is within
tolerance limit of 2.5 percent of set point. Moreover the load
voltage is maintains constant which is our main objective.
Load current: 0.074 A
Load Voltage: 313 V
V. CONCLUSION
We have conceptualized and simulated a circuit for
utilizing the solar energy for driving high voltage loads,
previously a less explored area. Our circuit achieves all the
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objectives mentioned and is verified through the simulation
results. The circuit has advantages such as simplicity and
efficiency; hence the hardware requirements are also simple.
Although actual outputs may differ from simulation results,
the basic design of the circuit remains the same. The PI
controller is simple and works fine within specific tolerance
limits. For better and accurate results, non linear controllers
like Fuzzy, Sliding mode control etc. can be preferred.
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