Design, Simulation, and Experimental Validation of a New Fuzzy Logic-Based Maximal Power Point Tracking Strategy for Low Power Wind Turbines

With the fast-growing demand for wind energy, small wind turbines are becoming a viable and cost-effective source of clean and renewable electricity for residential, businesses, small industries, and remote applications. To harness the maximum power, wind turbines (WT) should be operated at full capacity; hence, it is crucial to design an effective maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control scheme. This paper presents an effective MPPT control algorithm based on fuzzy logic control (FLC) which tracks the slope of the mechanical power of the WT as a function of the rotational speed. The output of this MPPT generates the duty cycle for the DC–DC converter to allow the WT to extract the maximum power under a wide range of wind speed and loading conditions. The electrical generator used in the studied wind energy conversion system is the permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG). The proposed FLC-MPPT strategy is simple to implement and does not require any prior knowledge of the WT parameters. The proposed FLC-MPPT technique for WT is simulated using MATLAB/Simulink and validated experimentally on a laboratory setup using a dSPACE1104 board. In addition, a comparison between the proposed FLC-MPPT and other methods under significant wind speed fluctuations and variable load conditions is presented to demonstrate its effectiveness. The results show that the proposed MPPT has a fast convergence with a high tracking accuracy and exhibits low steady-state oscillations.