AnalogMixedSignal Simulation of DCDC BoostBased MPPT System Taking into Account Weather Conditions Variations DCDC converters are widely used as interfaces between photovoltaic (PV) sources and loads in different applications. These devices use inductors as energy storage elements for controlling the power flow from the PV source to the load. These systems are usually designed using conventional linear smallsignal approaches in the vicinity of an operating point. However, the operating point of a PV system is highly dependent on the environmental conditions such as the irradiance and the temperature. Irradiance and temperature changes make the system work at different power and current levels. The inductance of a nonlinear real inductor strongly depends on the operating current. In this paper, a study of a boost converter used for maximum power point tracking is presented by taking into account the inductor nonlinearity till saturation and the variation of its inductance with the weather conditions. To this end analogmixedsignal circuit simulations are used to show the effects of the weather conditions on the dynamical behavior of the overall PV system.

Modeling of Saturable Inductors for Application in DCDC Converters This paper deals with a method by which the experimental characterization of a power inductor is obtained from onboard measurements that exploits a lowcost DCDC buck converter to supply the inductor under test with quasirectangular voltage waveforms of different amplitudes and bias conditions. The measurements of the voltage  v_mathrmL(t)  across the inductor and the current  i_mathrmL(t)  are performed up to inductions approaching the magnetic saturation. After suitable integration of  v_mathrmL(mathrmt) , the magnetic flux is obtained as a function of  i_mathrmL  and the accuracy of the described identification process is checked by comparing the measured waveform of the current to numerical simulation of the same quantity obtained assuming as input the DC current component and the measured voltage waveform.