Design And Implementation Of Digital Solar Cell Simulator

With the development and progress of the industry, the energy structure optimization problem is valued by more and more countries. Solar energy, a new type regenerated energy, becomes a popular solution. However, under the influence of the sunlight intensity and surrounding temperature, the cost of solar array experiments is too high and the life cycle of research and development becomes too long. The solar cell simulator can shorten the research and development cycle greatly and improve the efficiency of investigation and the reliability of result.Firstly, the thesis describes the background and the significance of solar energy utilization, the classification and the state of art of solar array emulators. Then it derives the mathematical model of solar cells, based on analysis of its operation principle and equivalent circuits. The model is simulated with Matlab/Simulink to validate its accuracy and practicability. The thesis also develops a prototype solar cell simulator.The designed simulator contains the pre-switching power supply and the digital regulated power supply. The pre-switching power supply achieves a stable +24V output power with 220V input through the protection circuit, EMI filter circuit, rectifier circuit, TL494 push-pull amplifier circuit, half-bridge switching regulator circuit and the output rectifier filter circuit. The digital regulated power supply uses STM32F103VET6 as the control, and accomplishes the sample measurement and settings of the system’s voltage and current by AD/DA.The solar cell simulator is a special digital regulated power supply, which can output power as a real solar cell. This thesis uses the point-to-point comparison and the moving average filter to control the simulator’s output on the quiescent operating point of the load. The software is implemented with Keil uVision4.Finally, the thesis designs the schematics and PCBs by the Altium Designer Summer 09. The simulator is evaluated under different loads. The testing results show that the designed digital solar cell simulator can output the characteristic as a real solar cell.