Dynamic reconfiguration of photovoltaic energy harvesting system in hybrid electric vehicles

Abstract

Photovoltaic (PV) energy harvesting system is a promising energy source for battery replenishment in hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs.) The PV cell array is installed on different parts of a vehicle body such as the engine hood, door panels, and the roof panel. Non-uniformity of the solar irradiance and temperature on the PV cell array is, however, a serious obstacle to efficient utilization of the PV system in HEVs because such variation, if not managed properly, can result in a significant degradation in the overall output power level of the PV system. This paper presents a dynamic PV array reconfiguration technique with structural support and a dynamic programming-based algorithm with polynomial time complexity to produce the near-optimal reconfiguration of the PV array on the HEV. The goal of this technique is to maximize the PV system output power under any solar irradiance and temperature distribution on the PV array. We demonstrate up to 6X improvement in the output power of a PV system against a conventional fixed configuration PV system.