Adaptive Ripple Correlation Control (ARCC) for Solar Maximum Power Point Tracking

This paper presents a new approach for maximum power point tracking, namely, adaptive ripple correlation control (ARCC). Finding the proper value of the control law gain for traditional ripple correlation control (RCC) is not straightforward and does not adapt to significant changes in the solar irradiance and temperature. This paper presents a fast and robust method that adapts the control law gain k in order to achieve maximum power point tracking with small power ripple content p. The paper starts with a review of the basic concepts of ripple correlation control. We then propose an adaptation technique with three variants: Two fixed gain values, one fixed gain value and another dynamic value, and two dynamic gain values. Afterwards we present simulation results that validate the quick and robust response of our proposed methods compared to P&O and INCO. Next, a comparison to traditional RCC and a comparison between control gain of various methods are presented. Finally, we conclude by presenting tips on setting up the fixed and varying gain values.