On the Design and Implementation of a Portable Maximum Power Point Tracking Solar Power Supply

This work reports on the design and implementation of a solar DC power supply which employs a Perturb and Observe Maximum Power Point Tracking algorithm. The device has been designed to be portable, highly efficient whilst being low cost. The power supply employs an ARDUINO MEGA embedded system to monitor and control two buck-boost converters that control the power flow from the solar panel to a battery and load with a measured efficiency of 85%.