An Advanced Switch Failure Diagnosis Method and Fault Tolerant Strategy in Photovoltaic Boost Converter

Abstract

Abstract—The PV systems have increasingly displayed remarkable usefulness and interest, particularly in a wide range of industrial applications, such as industrial control systems, medical applications and hybrid vehicles. Due to the necessity of systems continuity requirement imposed by these applications, a special careful consideration should be granted to the boost converter reliability performance. Indeed, the boost converter reliability could be affected by a faulty operation essentially related to semiconductor switch used. In this respect, this paper proposes an advanced fast FDM with a FT strategy applied in boost converter PV systems in order to guarantee their continuity. By implementing the FDM and FT strategies on a dSpace real-time system, both types of OCF and SCF in boost converter switch are detected, identified and compensated. The proposed FDM is founded on the signals variations (increase or decrease) of the PV current, voltage and power as well as the duty cycle of the PV system. Accordingly, the PV system cost and complexity dimensions should tend to decrease due to the particular use of current and voltage sensors, dedicated to maintain the systems effective control. Additionally, for the purpose of the FT strategy which is applied under a fault appearance or occurrence, a redundant switch has been incorporated into the original boost converter in order to compensate the fault. Finally, the experimental results prove to confirm the high performance and capability of the proposed FDM and FT strategy in maintaining the PV system continuity.

Keywords:

• PV systems
• boost converter
• reliability
• continuity
• OCF
• SCF
• redundant switch
• FDM
• FT strategy
• experimental results

Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the Tunisian Ministry of Higher Education. Special thanks are also due to Mr. Sami CHAMI, a Senior University English teacher, at the Sfax National School of Engineers, Tunisia, for his precious help in matters of linguistic and structural proofreading of the present manuscript.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mohamed Ali Zdiri

Mohamed Ali Zdiri was born in Kasserine, Tunisia, in 1992. He received the BS degree in 2016 and the PhD in 2019 both of them in Electrical Engineering from the National Engineering School of Sfax (ENIS), University of Sfax, Tunisia. He is currently a Post-doc position at the Control and Energy Management Laboratory “CEMLab” in Electrical Engineering at ENIS, University of Sfax, Tunisia. Mr. Zdiri has been a contractual assistant of power electronics and drives at the Electrical Department of ENIS since 2016. Mr. Zdiri is a Member of the Research “CEMLab” laboratory of the ENIS. His main research interests include the synthesis and the implementation of advanced diagnosis and fault tolerant strategies for power converters applied to renewable energy systems.

Mohsen Ben Ammar

Mohsen Ben Ammar received his PhD in Contribution to optimizing the management of multisource renewable energy systems in Electrical Engineering from the National Engineering School of Sfax, University of Tunisia in 2011. He has been an Associate Professor at the University of Sfax, ENIS of Sfax, Tunisia. He was Master Technological Professor at the ISET of Sfax, Tunisia, from 1998-2013. Since 2012, and a researcher in the Control and Energy Management Laboratory “CEMLab”, in the National School of Engineers of Sfax, Tunisia. His current research interests are renewable energies management, monitoring system, fuzzy logic and genetic algorithms.

Badii Bouzidi

Badii Bouzidi was born in Ksour-Essef, Tunisia, in 1981. He received the BS degree in 2005 in Electromechanical Engineering, the MS in 2006 and the PhD in 2011 both of them in Electrical Engineering, from the Sfax Engineering School (SES), University of Sfax, Tunisia. He has been an assistant of power electronics and drives in the Electromechanical Engineering Department of the SES since 2011. He is currently an Associate Professor of power electronics and drives at SES since 2012. Mr. Bouzidi is a member of the Research Laboratory on Renewable Energies and Electric Vehicles of Sfax University. His major interests are the analysis and the implementation of advanced control strategies in AC motor drives applied in renewable energy and automotive systems.

Rabhi Abdelhamid

Rabhi Abdelhamid received the Master's Degree from the University of Versailles, in robotics and control systems. He got his PhD in observation and control for non-linear and complex systems in December 2005. Since 2006, he has been an Associate Professor at the University of Picardie Jules Verne, Faculty of Sciences, and a researcher in the Modeling, Information and Systems (MIS) laboratory, Amiens, France. His research activities deal with adaptive and robust control, diagnosis and observation for complex systems such as vehicles and robots. Applications of his research activities focus on areas such as vehicles and autonomous robots applications, as well as the MACSyME project (Modeling Analysis and Control of Systems with Multiple Energy sources).

Hsan Hadj Abdallah

Hsan Hadj Abdallah is currently a Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department of the Sfax Engineering School (SES), University of Sfax, Tunisia. Mr. Hadj Abdallah is a member of the “CEMLab” laboratory of the SES. He received the MS in 1982, the Diploma in-depth studies in 1984, the PhD in 1991 all in electrical engineering, from the superior normal school of technical teaching of Tunis, University of Tunis, Tunisia and the Research Management Ability degree in electrical engineering from SES in 2007. He is author and co-author of about 100 papers in international journals and conferences. His main research interests are electrical power system (EPS), the dispatching and the stability of the EPS, wind energy and intelligent techniques applications in the EPS.