A Developed Circuit Model for Electric Drives of Solar Powered Vehicle Using a Two-Inductor Boost Converter

G.Kishor1 and B.Gururaj2 1. Research Scholar, JNTUA, Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, India. E-mail: gudipatikishor@gmail.com 2. PG student, GPREC (Autonomous), Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh, India. E-mail: anilgururaj009@gmail.com

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to design a circuit model for the electrical drive of a conventional auto rickshaw model to be driven by an electric actuator system, which is powered by a photovoltaic system with a set of lead-acid batteries which are charged by solar photo voltaic panels. The developments in the automotive electrical systems necessitate the effective design, an isolated boost converter topology is attractive in applications such as to generate high output voltage from low input voltage with battery or solar powered devices and a developed circuit model is

unpredictable and sudden changes in weather conditions which change the solar irradiation level as well as the cell operating temperature. The two-inductor boost converter exhibits many advantages in high power, low input voltage to high output voltage conversion applications.

II. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION The prototype of the solar vehicle essentially consists of solar panels, a Maximum Power Point Tracking (M.P.P.T) circuitry for tracking maximum power from the solar panels and delivering to the battery stack, a battery stack for storing the electrical energy, a dc motor actuator

represented with proposed results showing the performance of electric drive.

Index Terms- electric drive, pv-system, two-inductor boost converter.

for driving the vehicle, a power conditioner for matching the different voltage and power levels of the battery and

I. INTRODUCTION The electric drives are becoming increasingly popular in the control of hybrid vehicles. In addition to them being pollution free, electric control is accurate and precise handling of power is possible. In the case of solar vehicles, electric drives are a natural choice. This is because solar energy can be stored in batteries and electric drives are the best means of converting the energy stored in the batteries to useful mechanical energy that runs the vehicle. The electrical drives powered by solar arrays requires special design considerations due to varying nature of the solar power generated resulting from

the motor, a control circuitry for speed control and human interface and exigency handling.

Fig.1. Circuit model for solar Vehicle

The figure shows the general arrangement of the proposed circuit model for electrical drive of the solar powered vehicle. The battery for a battery powered vehicle should be of high specific energy, high energy density, large service life, high depth of discharge, high efficiency/low charging factor. The electric motor used is a dc series motor. The motor is permanently attached to the load. Hence the motor needs to start on load. Thus a series winding for the motor is necessary to provide the staring torque. The main source of the system is the stack of solar panels. According to maximum power transfer theorem, the maximum output from the solar panel is obtained only when the source resistance becomes equal to the load resistance. As the internal resistance of the solar panel keeps varying according to the illumination at that time, an M.P.P.T circuit is required to get maximum power output from the panels. An M.P.P.T circuit maybe a

III.DESIGN A. Motor considerations The weight of the vehicle is 600 kg, which includes the weight of the chassis, the solar panels, the motor, and the battery with an additional 120 kg for two passengers. The power rating is evaluated using the basic equations of mechanics. The total power required is estimated to be 2 HP or 1.5 kW, assuming an acceleration of 0.5m1s2. Thus a 2HP series wound dc motor is used. B. Battery considerations The environmental conditions for batteries used in association with renewable energy sources are often extreme and therefore, a wide range of selection criteria must be considered such as: Cyclic requirements Overcharge tolerance Temperature range Self discharge Availability and frequency of recharge The battery should be of deep discharge type with large overcharge tolerance, large temperature range of

simple buck-boost chopper controlled by continuously varying the load value until maximum power is obtained. Though meant for drawing maximum power from the panels the M.P.P.T circuitry also has to take care of the condition of the battery. A fully charged battery needs only trickle charging whereas for an uncharged battery maximum power transfer is what is required. The control circuitry effectively signals the M.P.P.T circuit about the condition of the battery, which is sensed by the instrumentation system. The power output from the battery stack is a dc voltage with voltage and current values not compatible with the motor requirements. A

operation, little or no self-discharge. The efficiency of a battery is not a constant. It varies with discharge. Considering a nominal value of efficiency and depth of discharge, for an hour of operation and considering the terminal voltage as 12V the total capacity is calculated to be 595 Ah (=600 Ah). It is always better to minimize the number of batteries to be used. But due to monetary constraints eight 75 Ah batteries are used. As the number of batteries is large the total weight increases thereby putting a constraint on the speed and acceleration that can be achieved. C. Power Controller The circuit of two-inductor boost converter is shown in the Fig2. This two-inductor boost converter is chosen for
high input power low input voltage to high output voltage conversion applications.

power conditioner is required which adjusts the voltage output of the battery to the required value for the motor. The two inductor boost converter is used to step up the voltage for various types of DC loads and exhibit better performance characteristics. The control input for the power conditioner is generated by a PWM generator.

controlled devices. They are preferred over thyristors, as complex circuitry for turning off is not required. It is available at higher power levels and higher switching speeds when compared to GTO and IGBT. The voltage across the MOSFET should be more than 220V ideally when it is switched off. Considering stray inductances, the voltage rating of the MOSFET should be more than 350V, also the MOSFET should be rated to carry more than 16A. Inductor design A gapped core inductance is used, so that the inductor
Fig.2.Two inductor boost converter

will not get saturated when high current flows. The value of the inductance depends on the switching frequency. The higher the switching frequency, the lower is the inductance value. The upper limit for the frequency is decided by the MOSFET switching speed and the power loss.

The input side of the two inductor boost converter consists of two switches S1 an S2, two boost inductors L1 and L2, and auxiliary transformer ATR. The output side of the circuit consists of boost rectifiers D1 and D2 and output filter capacitors C1 and C2 connected across load R0. The operation of the circuit can be explained through various time periods. During mode 1 the switch S1 is closed. This makes the circuit complete, causing the flow of current. Therefore the current through the inductor L2 forward bias the diode D2, switch S2 remains open. The current through L2 forward biases D2 thereby the inductor discharges the energy stored in it. During mode 2 both the switches S1 and S2 are turned ON. The current flow through the inductors L1 and L2 increase at an equal rate. The capacitors C1 and C2 discharge their stored energy because the diodesD1 and D2 are reverse biased. As a result the input part of the circuit is decoupled from the output part. During the mode 3, the switch S1is turned ON and the inductor which is charged in mode 2 discharges through capacitor C1. During mode 4 the circuit repeats the operation as in mode 2. The two inductor boost converter is shown in Fig2. Switch design MOSFETs are preferred to power transistors as the switching of transistors depends on the current supplied to the base terminal, whereas MOSFETs are voltage

L=

Va (1 K) f .I ripple

(1)

where, L is the required inductance value in Henry, Va is the voltage across the inductance in Volts, f is the frequency of operation and ripple is the ripple current through the inductance. An optimal frequency of 100 kHz is selected and the inductance value is calculated to be 0.5410mH assuming a current ripple of 1A. Capacitor design The capacitance value required for the circuit is calculated using the equation:

C=

I a. K f .Vripple

(2)

where, C is the capacitance required in Farads, f is the current through the capacitor in Amperes and Vripple is the tolerable voltage ripple in Volts. The open voltage required for the motor is 220V. Considering 100 kHz frequency, load current

of 7A, and voltage ripple of

IV, the capacitor value is calculated to be 39.7JlF. The capacitor used is of 40JlF, 450V.

MOSFET Protection Protection is provided to prevent the surge in voltage across the drain-source terminals of the MOSFET. The surge in voltage is due to the effect of stray inductances. Over voltage protection is achieved using an RC clamping circuit as shown in Fig.3

Fig.3. MOSFET protection circuit

The opamp inputs can be switched off by reverse biasing the diodes. The required voltage value is given to the feedback PWM pin. Thus the required PWM is obtained. Pulse width modulation system The required PWM of frequency 100 kHz is obtained by suitably designing capacitance C and resistance R. IV.RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The two-inductor boost converter circuitry is successfully implemented. Various waveforms associated with the converter are shown below.

Fig.5 Switching pulse for Switch S2 The above graphs indicate the pulse waveforms of the two switches that are present in the circuit. The switches are two in number in order to increase the input to output voltage conversion and also high current. The output voltage waveform of the two inductor boost converter circuit is shown in Fig6.

Fig.6. Two inductor Boost converter Output Voltage

Initial testing is done with a load rheostat replacing the motor while in the final test the original compound motor is used. The output voltage versus the duty cycle is plotted in Fig 7.
Fig.4 Switching pulse for Switch S1

The variation of speed with respect to input current is as shown in Fig.10. From the plot, it is clear that the speed drops with increased load. The performance is satisfactory for loads till the rated value and the drop in speed is only about 30%.

Fig.7.Output voltage versus duty cycle

The speed versus output voltage is plotted and as expected the relation is nonlinear. Fig.8. shows the variation of speed with output voltage.

Fig.10. Speed versus input current

V. CONCLUSIONS A developed circuit model for the electrical drive of an solar powered vehicle is presented in this paper. The control is based on armature voltage pulse width modulation. A Two-inductor boost converter is employed
Fig.8. Speed versus armature voltage

to make the output of the PWM controller compatible with the motor ratings. At high loads, due to switching, unexpected disturbances were 220 observed. The excess weight due to non availability of high capacity batteries could not be incorporated onto the vehicle as the power required exceeded the calculated values and the increased power would result in lesser run time of the vehicle. The clamping circuit for the protection of the MOSFET worked, but as the load increased the harmonics due to the switching started appearing. These could not be clamped as the primary harmonic fell in the pass band of the low pass clamping circuit. MOSFET protection scheme needs to be modified to cut off all these frequencies. The control of critical parameters is effective.

The speed versus duty cycle plot is also obtained and is as shown in Fig.9.

Fig.9. Speed versus duty cycle

The two-inductor boost converter circuit proved good enough to keep a good check on the critical parameters like input current, output voltage and speed. The system effectively shuts down once any of these parameters got out of hand, thereby saving the batteries and the circuitry involved. REFERENCES
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