Maximum power point tracking technique for microsatellite power supply system

Searching for high power conversion efficiency is an important goal when designing an electrical power source for any satellite due to limited power availability and constrains imposed on satellite weight. The work done in this paper tries to reach such goal through presenting a power supply system for a microsatellite in which MPPT technique is used based on fuzzy logic controller. Simulation results showed that the used technique gives higher conversion efficiency relative to those used in similar applications and also relative to the DET technique used in other satellite power supply systems. The operation of power supply system for a remote sensing microsatellite is simulated using the SIMULINK of the MatLab 6.5 for both MPPT and DET techniques using the same loads. A decrease of 25% in solar array area is found to be achieved when using the proposed MPPT technique relative to the case of using DET technique.