Patent ID: 8461820

Claim:
A method for controlling a switching circuit controlling an amount of power drawn from an energy converter, the method comprising: measuring an output voltage and an output current of the energy converter to produce signals representing converter output voltage and converter output current; calculating converter power from the product of said converter output voltage and said converter output current; calculating a perturb voltage as a decreasing nonlinear function of said converter power; and producing a new reference voltage signal representing a desired converter output voltage, in response to a previous reference voltage signal and said perturb voltage, for use by the switching circuit to adjust the power drawn from the converter to achieve said desired converter output voltage, wherein said decreasing nonlinear function includes a hyperbolic function of converter power, said hyperbolic function being generally represented by: Vstep=((a/(b+Pconverter/c))−d; wherein Vstep=perturb voltage; Pconverter=Converter Power; a=a variable between about 5 and about 9; b=a variable between 0 and about 3; c=a variable between about 1000 and about 2000; and d=a variable between about 1 and about 3.