Abstract
Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm has various features that make it more attractive than other algorithms. Particularly, it is simple, it uses fewer control parameters and its convergence is independent of the initial conditions. In this paper, a new MPPT system has been suggested for photovoltaic (PV)-DC motor-pump system by designing two PI controllers via ABC algorithm. The first one is used to reach MPPT by monitoring the voltage and current of the PV array and adjusting the duty cycle of the DC/DC converter. The second PI controller is designed for speed control of DC series motor by setting the voltage fed to the DC series motor through another DC/DC converter. The suggested design problem of MPPT and speed controller is formulated as an optimization task which is solved by ABC to search for optimal parameters of PI controllers. Simulation results have shown the validity of the developed technique in delivering MPPT to DC series motor-pump system under atmospheric conditions and tracking the reference speed of motor. Moreover, the performance of the ABC algorithm is compared with Genetic Algorithm (GA) for various disturbances to prove its robustness.