Design and Simulation of Photovoltaic Array for Plug in Hybrid Solar Assist Electric Tractor Using MATLAB

The array of a plug in hybrid solar assist electric tractor is designed and simulated by MATLAB software before construction. The array consists of 15 solar panels from which 5 are connected in series and 3 groups are connected in parallel. The relation between input and output parameters and effective environmental factors are modeled by mathematical formula and Voltage-Current, Voltage-Power curves assessed in different conditions and for different parameters. Results showed that the evaluation diagrams are in good agreement with experimental values with acceptable accuracy with as high as 97 % compared with the manufacturing company data. Finally, the designed algorithm was compared with that of Sandia National Laboratories Algorithm and good agreements were resulted as well. It is concluded that the simple developed model presented in this paper is comparable to the complicated model developed by Sandia algorithm and can safely be used instead.