Optimum power tracking among series-connected power sources with uniform voltage distribution

This paper presents a power system architecture where series-input parallel-output (SIPO) converters are controlled to achieve uniform input voltages across their respective series-connected power sources while also tracking the system optimum power point; the system optimum power point is the maximum power drawn from the series-connected power sources while their voltages are kept uniformly distributed. With proper uniform input voltage distribution control, near maximum use of the power sources is achieved by employing only one maximum power tracking (MPT) controller instead of multiple MPT controllers dedicated for their respective power sources. Provided that the maximum power point voltages of the input power sources are similar, the resulting system architecture offers near-maximum power transfer with lower parts count. A feasibility study using computer simulation has successfully validated two SIPO power architectures and their control concepts for optimum power transfer.