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Transportation Research Procedia 40 (2019) 579–585

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13th International Scientific Conference on Sustainable, Modern and Safe Transport

13th International 2019),
(TRANSCOM Scientific
HighConference
Tatras, Novy Smokovec –Modern
on Sustainable, and Safe
Grand Hotel Transport
Bellevue,
(TRANSCOM 2019),Slovak High Tatras, Novy
Republic, Smokovec
May – Grand Hotel Bellevue,
29-31, 2019
Slovak Republic, May 29-31, 2019
Simple method of photovoltaic panel power characteristic
Simple method ofbased
measurement photovoltaic panelhardware
on Arduino power characteristic
platform
measurement based on Arduino hardware platform
Martin Vestenicky, Slavomir Matuska*, Robert Hudec
Martin Vestenicky, Slavomir Matuska*, Robert Hudec
Department of Multimedia and Information-Communication Technology
University
Department of Zilina, Univerzitna
of Multimedia 8215/1 01026 Zilina, Slovakia
and Information-Communication Technology
University of Zilina, Univerzitna 8215/1 01026 Zilina, Slovakia

Abstract
Abstract
This paper deals with simple measurement method for low power photovoltaic panel power characteristic measurement. Proposed
method
This is based
paper on the
deals with characteroscope
simple measurementprinciple,
method for which
low utilizes simple controlled
power photovoltaic currentcharacteristic
panel power sink and measurement
measurement.circuitry for
Proposed
current
method and voltage
is based onmeasurements rangingprinciple,
the characteroscope from no load
which to utilizes
short circuit conditions
simple oncurrent
controlled the photovoltaic
sink and cell. Emphasiscircuitry
measurement was placed
for
to design
current andthevoltage
simplest possible hardware
measurements rangingbased
fromonnoArduino
load to platform. Theconditions
short circuit maximumon power point of measured
the photovoltaic panel is obtained
cell. Emphasis was placedby
mathematical calculation
to design the simplest whichhardware
possible is carriedbased
out by
onthe firmware
Arduino of Arduino
platform. Central Processing
The maximum Unitof(CPU).
power point Simulation
measured panel is of proposed
obtained by
hardware design
mathematical and experimental
calculation results taken
which is carried out byontheprototype
firmwarewas shown. Central Processing Unit (CPU). Simulation of proposed
of Arduino
hardware design and experimental results taken on prototype was shown.
© 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
© 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review
© under responsibility
2019 The Authors. Published byof the scientific
Elsevier B.V. committee of the 13th International Scientific Conference on Sustainable,
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 13th International Scientific Conference on Sustainable,
Modern and
Peer-review Safe
under Transport (TRANSCOM
responsibility of the
Modern and Safe Transport (TRANSCOM 2019). 2019).
scientific committee of the 13th International Scientific Conference on Sustainable,
Modern and Safe Transport (TRANSCOM 2019).
Keywords: Arduino, photovoltaic panel, power characteristic, maximum power point
Keywords: Arduino, photovoltaic panel, power characteristic, maximum power point

1. Introduction
1. Introduction
During design stages of specialized weather station intended for use in the weather and sun light data collection
taskDuring
in thedesign stages of
PREDICON specialized
project Hudecweather station intended
et al. (2018), for use inoftheMaximal
the measurement weather Power
and sunPoint
light (MPP)
data collection
of used
task in the PREDICON
photovoltaic panel arisen.project
A lot ofHudec
papersetwith
al. (2018),
focus onthe
MPP measurement
measurement of were
Maximal PowerThe
published. Point
most(MPP) of were
of them used
photovoltaic
focused on MPP panel arisen. A lotfor
measurement of big
papers with focussystems
photovoltaic on MPP i.e.measurement
Chandwani and wereKothari
published. Theormost
(2016) of them were
Thueanpangthaim
focused on MPP
et al. (2017). Themeasurement
others worksfor bigadvanced
used photovoltaic systems i.e.
programming Chandwani
techniques andand Kothariintelligence
artificial (2016) or Thueanpangthaim
to measure MPP.
et al. (2017). The others works used advanced programming techniques and artificial intelligence to measure MPP.

* Corresponding author.
* E-mail address:author.
Corresponding slavomir.matuska@fel.uniza.sk
E-mail address: slavomir.matuska@fel.uniza.sk
2352-1465 © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review©under
2352-1465 responsibility
2018 The of the scientific
Authors. Published committee
by Elsevier B.V. of the 13th International Scientific Conference on Sustainable, Moder n and
Safe Transport
Peer-review (TRANSCOM
under 2019).
responsibility of the scientific committee of the 13th International Scientific Conference on Sustainable, Moder n and
Safe Transport (TRANSCOM 2019).

2352-1465  2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 13th International Scientific Conference on Sustainable, Modern and
Safe Transport (TRANSCOM 2019).
10.1016/j.trpro.2019.07.083
580 Martin Vestenicky et al. / Transportation Research Procedia 40 (2019) 579–585
2 Vestenicky et al. / Transportation Research Procedia 00 (2019) 000–000

Khanam and Foo (2018) used neural networks while Mohammed et al (2016) used adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference
system. Only few papers dealt with low cost and effective MPP measurement. Divya et al. (2014) presented a simple,
low cost and efficient way of MPP measurement using a simple and fast perturb and observation algorithm.
Mentioned weather station is equipped with small photovoltaic panel with approximately 5 W of maximal power.
The small photovoltaic panel and weather station simplicity were the reason why we needed to design and develop
low-cost, efficient and fast method for MPP measurement. Whole weather station is based on the Arduino architecture.
Its conception was described in Vestenicky et al. (2018). According to the hardware conception of mentioned weather
station, the simplest possible method of MPP measurement was needed to incorporate in its hardware, leaving all
possible tasks on software equipment. One can fulfill this demand in different ways, including one point Current-
Voltage (I-U) curve measurement described in Rabinovici and Frechter (2010), usage of specialized integrated circuits,
and design of specialized characteroscope around Arduino hardware. One point I-U characteristic based MPP
measurement of described in Rabinovici and Frechter (2010) requires only measurement of panel voltage and panel
current in one point of I-U characteristic, but it also requires several parameters of panel to be known. Specialized
integrated circuits exist mainly for battery and charge process management purposes and ensures only MPP tracking,
but the information of panel MPP is hardly to extract from them. Design of characteroscope in plain hardware is
relative difficult task, but with help of ATMega2560 hardware resources and appropriate software routines, the
hardware complexity of such circuit can be significantly reduced.

2. Circuit design

Block schematic presented on Fig. 1 represent one of possible solutions of MicroController Unit (MCU) based
characteroscope. Proposed concept utilizes two Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) channels of MCU and one digital
output pin, which controls the resistance parameter of the variable resistance block. The voltage across photovoltaic
panel is measured through one of ADC channel connected by resistive divider and appropriate anti-aliasing filter.
Current which flows out of photovoltaic cell is fed to the variable resistance block through current sensing part of the
linear hall effect current measurement circuit whose output is connected to the another ADC channel of the used MCU
through appropriate anti-aliasing filter.

Hall effect
Photovoltaic Variable Output pin
current
panel resistance
sensor

Resistive MCU
AAF divider
& AAF
ADC ch. #1

ADC ch. #2

Fig. 1 Principle of I-U characteristic of photovoltaic cell measurement

Low hardware complexity of MPP measurement subsystem is the key feature of proposed measurement principle.
Circuit shown on Fig. 2 represents the core of simple characteroscope i.e. the variable resistance block. Hardware
solution of this block consists only of N channel Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor (MOSFET) T1
and R – C network in its gate circuit. Due to driving the transistor from MCU pin, T1 needs to be logic level type, i.e.
its threshold voltage needs to be relatively low. Pulse voltage generated by source V1 charges capacitor C1 through R3
and R4 network. Please note that in real circuit it is generated by appropriate output pin of the ATMega2560 MCU
through software routine. With assumption of C1 voltage equals zero at certain time point V1 rises to logic one i.e. 5
volts at this time point and the voltage across C1 terminals starts to rise by nonlinear ramp. With respect that gate
 Martin Vestenicky et al. / Transportation Research Procedia 40 (2019) 579–585 581
Vestenicky et al./ Transportation Research Procedia 00 (2019) 000–000 3

voltage of T1 is identical to C1 voltage, the T1 starts to conduct, its channel resistance RDS starts to decline. The
nonlinearity of gate voltage rise partially compensates nonlinear characteristic of RDS vs. UGS in the region which is
most significant for I-U characteristic of photovoltaic panel measurement. For purpose of feasibility study of proposed
measurement principle, the photovoltaic cell is modeled by constant current source I1 in parallel with Zener diode D1
and shunt resistor R2. Model is completed by serial resistance R1.

3 R1
3 1
R3

2 15k 4
R2 T1
I1 D1
1000 C1 R4 V1
4.70u 27k

Photovoltaic cell model MCU generated

Fig. 2 Simulation model of proposed characteroscope

Simulation results are shown on Fig. 3. The excitation signals can be seen in the lower portion of Fig. 3. Yellow
curve corresponds to V1 voltage and red curve corresponds to UGS voltage. Resultant signals are shown in upper
portion of Fig. 3, where cyan curve represents photovoltaic panel voltage VSP, green curve corresponds to photovoltaic
panel voltage ISP and blue curve corresponds to photovoltaic panel instantaneous power PI. Simulations were
performed in MICROCAP 11 environment. As can be seen the PI curve has one maximum which can be prompted as
maximum power point MPP.

Fig. 3 Time domain simulation results

It can also be noted, that the rise of ISP occurs in certain time delay after V1 rises to logical one. This time delay is
given by threshold voltage of T 1 and time constant of R-C network in its gate circuit. The simplicity of proposed
circuit is redeemed by wide scattering of this delay anyway simulation results indicate that proposed principle of I-U
characteristic measurement is feasible with respect to certain limitations. Real circuit needs to be supplemented by
circuits capable of measuring voltage across the photovoltaic panel, and current which flows through it. Those circuits
582 Martin Vestenicky et al. / Transportation Research Procedia 40 (2019) 579–585
4 Vestenicky et al. / Transportation Research Procedia 00 (2019) 000–000

needs to catch the time course of mentioned quantities. As can be seen on Fig. 4 the measurement of voltage across
photovoltaic panel terminals is realized by internal ADC of MCU whose input is connected to the photovoltaic panel
through simple resistive divider R1_D and R2_D supplemented by capacitor C_AAF1 which forms simple anti-
aliasing filter. Measurement of current which flows through panel is little bit complicated, but can be accomplished
by utilization of hall effect linear current sensor with analogue output S1, which is fed to another input of internal
ADC of the MCU through simple anti-aliasing filter formed by R_AAF2 and C_AAF2. Current sensor must be
powered from VCC line. Photovoltaic panel is connected through PHV_P connector. Other components names and
their values corresponds to components on Fig. 2.

Fig. 4 Part of real circuit

3. Firmware and signal processing

Software routine flow chart can be seen on Fig. 5. Routine starts by initialization of temporary variables, then the
zero current output voltage from current sensor (ISENSDC) must be obtained. Please note that used current sensor is
bidirectional, with one supply voltage VCC.

Start

Initialize
temporary Convert ADC
variables CH #1 ->
Buff1[CNT]
Get DC
component on Convert ADC
ADC CH #2 CH #2 ->
Buff2[CNT]
Set output pin Set output pin
HIGH INC CNT LOW

Delay d ms - + Filter data &

compute Pi
CNT > Nsamp

Return max(Pi)

Fig. 5 Firmware flowchart

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Vestenicky et al./ Transportation Research Procedia 00 (2019) 000–000 5

Zero current correspond to output voltage equal 0.5 V CC with certain inaccuracy given by fabrication process and
thermal conditions, so one must measure this zero current voltage before each shot of characteroscope.Signal
processing of obtained samples consist of filtering the raw samples by moving average filters with N coefficients
according to equation(1), where buff1Fj and buff2Fj are the j-th sample of voltage and current signal respectively.
j

 buff 1
i= j − N
i

buff 1F j =
N
(1)
j

 buff 2
i= j − N
i

buff 2 F j =
N
The real values of voltage and current signals samples VSPj and ISPj can be obtained by equation(2), where Ucal and
Ical are calibration constants given by equation(3) and ISENSDC is value of AD conversion from current sensor
obtained at zero current condition.
V=
SP j Ucal  buff 1F j
(2)
Ical  ( buff 2 F j − ISENS DC )
I SP j =

R1D + R2 D Vref
Ucal
=  B
R2 D 2 −1
(3)
Vref
Ical IsensC 
=
2B − 1
Symbols in equation(3) can be explained as follow: R1D and R2D are resistors values of resistive divider, Vref is reference
voltage of the AD converter, B is the bit resolution of the AD converter and Isens is the sensitivity of used current
sensor. Instantaneous power of photovoltaic panel is dependent only on instantaneous voltage across its terminals and
instantaneous current which it delivers and can be calculated by equation(4).

P
=Ij VSP j  I SP j (4)
Maximum power point of the photovoltaic panel can be found as a maximum of instantaneous power across all
samples by equation(5).

=MPP max ( PI j ) , j  1, Nsamp (5)

Values of constants and variables are summarized in Table 1.

Table 1. Control variables and constants definition and explanation.

Variable Meaning value unit
N Number of moving average filter coefficients 8 -
B Resolution of AD converter 10 bit
d Time delay before sampling 50 ms
Nsamp Number of samples for VSP and ISP 128 -
Vref Reference voltage for AD converter 3.3 V
IsensC Sensitivity of used current sensor 185 mV/A
R1D Resistor in divider 39 kΩ
R2D Resistor in divider 10 kΩ
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4. Experimental results

Proposed circuit and firmware routines were implemented in the prototype of weather station and tested in
laboratory environment. The laboratory test setup is shown on Fig. 6. It can be seen that the sunlight was supplemented
by powerful reflector for testing purposes. The waveforms obtained during one shot of characteroscope are shown on
Fig. 6.

Fig. 6 Laboratory test set up Fig. 7 Waveforms obtained during test

Values of voltage and current samples obtained during test were also exported from Arduino hardware to the PC
computer through serial interface and processed by proposed signal processing algorithm in MATLAB environment.
The resultant waveforms are shown on Fig. 8.

Fig. 8 Waveforms obtained by Arduino hardware

5. Conclusion and future work

Proposed principle of measuring MPP of photovoltaic panel is very simple and has very low hardware complexity
which is its main advantage. It can be seen that it is quite feasible with respect to certain restrictions given by its
simplicity. Those restrictions can be seen mainly in limited sample rate and resolution of AD converter which is
onboard the ATMEGA2560 MPU. Restriction associated with its AD converter is also in fact, that only one channel
can be sampled and converted at one time point, so there exists small phase shift between voltage and current sampled
signal. The accuracy of MPP measurement can be approximated to ±5%, which is sufficient for application in weather
station. Our proposed solution of MPP measurement could be also used in electric-driven car for the power output
prediction from its photovoltaic panels, in variety applications which are using photovoltaic panels as their power
source, in smart cities, transportation and many others.
In the future authors wish to refine the precision of MPP measurement by usage of more precise current sensors
for panel current measurement and more complex signal processing. The software solution will be revised according
 Martin Vestenicky et al. / Transportation Research Procedia 40 (2019) 579–585 585
Vestenicky et al./ Transportation Research Procedia 00 (2019) 000–000 7

to add accumulation of multiple subsequent characteroscope shots and interpolation of sampled signals to defeat phase
shift between voltage and current sampled signals.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contract No. APVV-16-0505:
The short-term PREDICtion of photovoltaic energy production for needs of pOwer supply of Intelligent BuildiNgs –
PREDICON.
This publication is the result of the project implementation: Centre of excellence for systems and services of
intelligent transport II, ITMS 26220120050 supported by the Research & Development Operational Programme
funded by the ERDF.
This work was supported by project ITMS: 26210120021, co-funded from EU sources and European Regional
Development Fund.

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