Abstract
This paper presents a modified particle swarm optimization (MPSO) based Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) method for PV system, which integrates fractional open circuit voltage (FOCV) method. The proposed algorithm uses FOCV principle to resolve the issues faced by conventional particle swarm optimization (PSO) based MPPT method, by initializing the particles nearby the global maximum power point (MPP). The proposed algorithm is highly robust and has good dynamic response. MATLAB/SIMULINK based simulation study was conducted and subsequently, an experimental setup was developed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, and the results were compared with conventional PSO based MPPT algorithm, as well as the Perturb and Observe (P&O) MPPT method.