Design and implementation of an FPGA-based digital control IC of maximum-power-point-tracking charger for vertical-axis wind turbine generators

This paper presents the design of an FPGA-based digital control IC of maximum-power-point-tracking (MPPT) charger for vertical-axis wind turbine generators. The output of the charger can be connected to a 48V battery to supply power to a DC load or an electric vehicle drive system. A novel MPPT scheme, which is the mixing of the conventional perturbation and observation method and a linear approximation method, to get the maximum output power of the wind turbine generation system with faster tracking speed is proposed. The simulation model of wind-turbine generation is built in PSIM simulation software tool and used to analyze the converter and MPPT system operation under different wind speed conditions. Based on the simulation model, the digital control IC of the MPPT charger is then designed. The digital MPPT control IC has been designed by using VHDL hardware description language. The simulation models for the MPPT control IC have also been constructed and verified by using Simulink, ModelSim, and PSIM cosimulation tools. The designed circuit has been implemented on an Altera Cyclone FPGA logic device. Simulation and experimental results are shown to verify the viability of the proposed control IC of the MPPT charger.