Photovoltaic Evaluation System

This book proposes the three methods to design and implement a novel photovoltaic (PV) evaluation system using MATLAB/Simulink and microcontroller platforms. They include (1) the data acquisition (DAQ) through the STM32F407 DISCOVERY board, (2) STM32F407VET6 microcontroller with a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) configuration, and (3) Arduino Mega 2560 with a HIL configuration. All of them are solely programmed in the MATLAB/Simulink environment. The high-accuracy data acquisition (DAQ) with a 12-bit (STM32F407VET6 microcontroller) and 10-bit (Arduino Mega 2560) resolution of analog-to-digital conversion is designed to measure not only irradiance but the cell temperature, voltage, and current of PV devices that are acquired through the STM32F407VET6 MCU, STM32F407 DISCOVERY board and/or Arduino Mega 2560. These data are further input to a PV model built in the MCU for a HIL simulation and/or monitoring to MATLAB/Simulink. Thus, the simulation results of PV model can be directly compared with the measurement ones for a PV module under real working conditions and the difference information can be displayed in LCD modules and/or MATLAB/Simulink.