A maximum power point tracking circuit of thermoelectric generators without digital controllers

Abstract

A digital coreless maximum power point tracking (MPPT) circuit for thermoelectric generator unit is proposed and fabricated. The experimental and simulation results from the proposed MPPT circuit dealt with rapid variation of temperature and abrupt changes of load current have shown that the proposed method allows stable operation with high power transfer efficiency. The proposed MPPT circuit has a merit in cost and miniaturization of a system compared to conventional MPPT algorithms thanks to an analog tracking circuit without digital controller unit for calculating peak power point by iterative methods. © IEICE 2010.