Simulation and Implementation of Solar Powered Electric Vehicle

Abstract

The rise in the price of oil and pollution issues has increased the interest on the development of electric vehicles. This paper discusses about the application of solar energy to power up the ve-hicle. The basic principle of solar based electric vehicle is to use energy that is stored in a battery to drive the motor and it moves the vehicle in forward or reverse direction. The Photo Voltaic (PV) module may be connected either in parallel or series, and the charge controllers direct this solar power to the batteries. The DC voltage from the PV panel is then boosted up using a boost DC-DC converter, and then an inverter, where DC power is converted to AC power, ultimately runs the Brushless DC motor which is used as the drive motor for the vehicle application. This paper focus-es on the design, simulation and implementation of the various components, namely: solar panel, charge controller, battery, DC-DC boost converter, DC-AC power converter (inverter circuit) and BLDC motor for the vehicle application. All these components are modeled in MATLAB/SIMULINK and in real-time, the hardware integration of the system is developed and tested to verify the si-mulation results.