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This paper presents a novel stand-alone solar-powered water-pumping system, especially suited for usage in rural or remote areas. The system is primarily designed to reduce both cost and complexity, while simultaneously guaranteeing optimal utilization of the photovoltaic generator. The use of standard hardware and control architectures ensures ease of installation, service, and maintenance. The proposed solution consists of a water pump driven by a permanent-magnet synchronous motor, controlled by a conventional field oriented control scheme. The photovoltaic array is directly connected to the dc bus of the inverter, with no intermediate power conversion stages. A perturbation based extremum-seeking controller adjusts the motor speed reference to attain the maximum power point operation of the photovoltaic array. Both simulations and experimental results on a full-scale prototype support the effectiveness of the proposed system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a theoretical analysis of a maximum-torque-per-ampere control strategy based on the extremum seeking control working principle, which provides useful insights for the definition of a systematic and quantitative design procedure. The focus is on the convergence properties to the optimal operating point, and a method for evaluating an upper bound of the convergence time is proposed. The analysis is supported by several experimental tests performed on an interior permanent-magnet synchronous motor. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]