Model predictive control for PV maximum power point tracking of single-phase submultilevel inverter

Dynamic behavior of solar energy resource entails the need of robust controllers that can converge to the maximum power point (MPP) to maximize energy harvest. This paper explores an improved Perturb and Observe (P&O) technique that combines a fixed step model predictive controller (MPC), to speed up the control loop, applied to a boost converter. The proposed MPC Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) technique is of higher efficacy and robustness over conventional MPPT. The improved MPC-MPPT is tested for the first time on an MPC strategy of seven-level subMultilevel Inverter (sMI) using three power arms cascaded with the H-bridge inverter. Such topology brings about many sizable benefits such as reduced number of power switches and their gate drivers when compared to the traditional multilevel inverter. MPC is also used as the control strategy for the sMI to eliminate complexities in the space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) and overcome the weaknesses of the inner control loop performance.