The Testing System Of Solar Cell Based On Virtual Instrument And Matlab

The technology of the utility of solar energy is attracting worldwide attention due to the development of world economy and the shortage of normal energy supply. Correspondingly, the solar cell industry is expanding quickly and the technology of solar cell is also improved. As the key equipment for the production, research of solar cell, it is important to develop a solar cell testing system with high performance.A testing system of solar cells with software correction was proposed in the paper. The testing system set simulated AM1 solar light by using short arc xenon lamp. The power supply system of the simulator was developed and the testing distance which the standard testing condition required was calculated through spectrum characteristics of the xenon lamp. It has many advantages such as low price, stable radiant intensity, low power losing, light spectrum similar to sunlight and even radiant intensity in large area. The hardware of the testing instrument is built by using virtual instrument concept. Making use of the powerful function of the computer and the data acquisition card (DAQ), the solar cell characteristics could be obtained quickly and accurately. The software system applies the combination of MATLAB and the graphical programming language LabVIEW.In the LabVIEW software platform, the I-V curve was displayed and the open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current, maximum power point, fill factor (FF), conversion efficiency were obtained. The maximum testing error rate was less than 0.370%, so the testing stability was fine. In the MATLAB platform, an effective theory and the engineering approach was proposed in the paper which could transform the testing result from the non-standard testing condition to the standard testing condition. The function of software reappearance was realized by modeling the reappearance factor with neural network. After reappearing, the errors of the Voc and Isc were 0.46% and 0.40% respectively, which were accord with the IEC criterion. So it is fit in with both of the industry and the academy.Finally, the testing system was evaluated and the considerations on optimization were suggested.