MPPT Algorithm Based on Artificial Bee Colony for PV System

Energy structures from non-conventional energy source has become highly demanded nowadays. In this way, the maximum power extraction from photovoltaic (PV) systems has attracted the attention,
therefore an optimization technique is necessary to improve the performance of solar systems. This article
proposes the use of ABC (artificial bee colony) algorithm for the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) of
a PV system using a DC-DC converter. The procedure of the ABC MPPT algorithm is using data values from
PV module, the P-V characteristic is identified and the optimal voltage is selected. Then, the MPPT strategy
is applied to obtain the voltage reference for the outer PI control loop, which in turn provides the current
reference to the predictive digital current programmed control. A real-time and high-speed simulator (PLECS
RT Box 1) and a digital signal controller (DSC) are used to implement the hardware-in-the-loop system to
obtain the results. The general system does not have a high computational cost and can be implemented in
a commercial low-cost DSC (TI 28069M). The proposed MPPT strategy is compared to the conventional
perturb and observe method, results show the proposed method archives a much superior performance.