MPPT Based on Modified Incremental Conductance Algorithm for Solar Powered UAV

Photovoltaics (PV) technology today becomes popular source of energy because the benefit of low-cost maintenance and emission free. One of the many applications of PV technology is electric vehicle. Development of the PV technology in electric vehicle such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and electric cars. PV operations also have its own characteristics, therefore optimal method is required to maximize the PV power output. This method called MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking). MPPT is a series of DC-DC converters that can set the operating voltage of the PV to reach the maximum power output. In the application of UAV, the PV will get highly volatile and intermittent irradiance because of the mobility of the UAV. Because this problem, it needs implementation of MPPT method that has fast response time of convergence, so it always produce the maximum power for each conditions. In this paper, the MPPT was designed by incremental conductance that already modified using correction factor from PV conductance value. Experimental results also showed that with the changing in irradiance and load values, Mod-Inc algorithm has better efficiency than hill climbing method.