Unified maximum power tracking among distributed power sources

Presented herein is Uniform Input Voltage Distribution (UIVD) control [6-9] for Distributed-Input Series-Output (DISO) converter power systems. UIVD for DISO converters is implemented to primarily achieve grouped maximum power throughput from non-identical power sources. This paper also offers a revised Maximum Power Tracking (MPT) controller [11] that facilitates simultaneous processing of distributed power flows among DISO converters. Conventionally, peak powers of distributed power sources are individually tracked by distributed converters that are controlled by independent MPT controllers (IMPT) without UIVD. However, when distributed power sources have similar peak power voltages, such IMPT controllers are not necessary. With UIVD, only one MPT controller is sufficient to achieve near-maximum use of available power. The resulting power and control architectures offer near-maximum power transfer with a lower parts count. Two DISO power converter architectures are described herein: one having a battery-dominated output and the other with a regulated-voltage output. Computer simulation and prototype testing have validated both power architectures with fault-tolerant grouped-tracking uniform voltage distribution (GT-UVD).