Performance investigation of simplified PWM MPPT approach for direct PV-fed switched reluctance motor in water pumping system

Variable speed drives (VSDs)-based direct photovoltaic (PV) fed water pumping systems (WPS) are of increasing importance for the socio-economic growth in remote areas. Due to the absence of windings and magnets on the rotor, switched reluctance motor (SRM) is emerging as a viable economic alternative in VSD systems. Thus, this study proposes and presents a simplified pulse width modulation-based maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control for direct PV-fed SRM-WPS using modified lookup table (MLUT) approach. The proposed control technique offers lesser phase peak, near same phase rms, reduced torque ripple and noise, better efficiency and reduced DC-link current ripple in contrast to single pulse mode technique. In addition, the proposed system does not require an intermediate converter and current sensors. Thus, results in reduced noise, reduced size and hence the cost of WPS. Further, it also provides a reduced memory size due to MLUT and an effective MPPT with the good dynamic response for a change in atmospheric conditions. The proposed system is modelled and simulated in MATLAB/Simulink environment and the prototype is built to validate experimentally using field programmable gate array controller. The performance analysis of the proposed system has been carried out and presented.