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Engineering, Technology & Applied Science Research Vol. 11, No. 4, 2021, 7501-7507 7501 
 

www.etasr.com Saad: Enhancement of Solar Cell Modeling with MPPT Command Practice with an Electronic Edge Filter 

 

Enhancement of Solar Cell Modeling with MPPT 

Command Practice with an Electronic Edge Filter 

Said Saad 

Faculty of Sciences of Monastir 

University of Monastir 
Monastir, Tunisia 

said.saad@fst.rnu.tn  
 

 

Abstract- A new photovoltaic cell modeling based on an 
electronically tunable edge filter is presented in this paper. The 

new model is subjected to temperature, illumination, and 

resistance variations. In addition, an MPPT (Maximum Power 

Point Tracker) command was exposed with a calculation 

algorithm based on a microcontroller card that used the behavior 

of an electronically tunable edge filter. The results confirm those 
published in the literature, showing the influence of the position 

of the leakage variation in our model, which can give more 

power. The simulation results show that the proposed command 
is efficient to determine the MPP point. 

Keywords-photovoltaic cell; illumination; MPPT; calculation 

algorithm; electronic tunable efge filter 

I. INTRODUCTION  

Today, renewable energies, such as photovoltaic, wind, or 
hydraulic energy appear to be inexhaustible and easily 
exploitable. If we take the example of solar energy, an area of 
145000km

2
 (4% of the arid deserts surface) of photovoltaic 

(PV) panels would be sufficient to cover the global energy 
needs [1]. Moreover, the enhancement of the efficiency of the 
PVs and the design and the implementation of PV systems pose 
challenges to builders, scientists, and researchers [2]. For a PV 
installation, the variations of illumination, temperature, and in 
load charge cause a degradation of the power supplied by the 
PV generator. In addition, the design of a PV cell may also 
have a negative effect on the performance and the results 
delivered to the load charge [3], that’s why a new model of PV 
cell is proposed in this paper where a leakage resistance is 
inserted in series with the diode of the cell. The purpose is to 
demonstrate that when we minimize the leakage effect in 
construction we can improve the current delivered to the 
charge. A solar cell presents nonlinear characteristics [4]. In 
order to extract the maximum power at each instant from the 
solar cell terminals and transfer it to the load, an adaptation 
stage is used between the solar cell and the load [5]. However, 
in order to find the Maximum Power Point (MPP) point we use 
algorithms and commands. Several MPP tracking techniques 
have been developed. These approaches can be divided into 
smart and classical schemes. In the first scheme category, we 
find ripple-based extremum seeking control [6], Neural 
Networks [7], dissimilation particle swarm optimization [8], 
and the Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model [9]. In the second 
category, we have the Perturb & Observe (P&O) [10], the 

effect of the DC/DC circuit voltage converter [12], and the 
Incremental Conductance Perturbation [13] methods.  

The method of Ripple-Based Extremum seeking is fast, but 
the current control is less stable than the voltage control [6]. 
The approach of Neural Networks has proved to be very 
efficient and accurate, but complex [7]. The method of particle 
swarm optimization gives good results, however it is complex 
because it is based on neural networks. The fuzzy method can 
directly drive the system to the MPP without searching the 
MPP and measuring illumination [9], but it is more 
complicated and uses feedback in the calculations. For the 
approaches of P&O and the incremental conductance 
perturbation, the reasoning is the same and it is simple, also the 
results are the same with a difference of 0.13% in dynamic 
conditions and as low as 0.02% in static conditions [10]. Also 
the methods that use the P&O suffer from oscillations which 
we always want to minimize. The method of effect of the 
DC/DC circuit voltage converter is practical [11], and may be 
unstable [12, 14].  

All the presented approaches and methods aim to advance 
the PV system efficiency. However, they suffer from certain 
stability problems, especially in rapid climate changes. In this 
paper, we researched a PV generator cell that works longer 
under the optimum conditions. Furthermore, the 
implementation of the calculation algorithm that finds the 
MPPT is presented and investigated. This method is based on 
an electronic card, and to the best of our knowledge, has not 
been presented before. The digital controller in the card is 
realized by a microcontroller-based system where the PV cell 
and the card are simulated in MATLAB Simulink and Proteus 
ISIS. The obtained results are clearly shown and discussed. 

II. SOLAR CELL MODELING 

PV solar energy comes from the direct transformation of a 
part of solar radiation to electrical energy. The responsible 
element of this transformation is the PV cell which gives a DC 
current. The generated voltage can vary between 0.3V and 
0.7V depending on the material used and its arrangement as 
well as the temperature of the cell and its age [15]. 
Furthermore, the energy efficiency performance achieved 
industrially is 13 to 14% for cells based on monocrystalline 
silicon, 11 to 12% for polycrystalline silicon, and 7 to 8% for 
amorphous silicon in thin films [16]. The general model of a 

Corresponding author: Said Saad



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www.etasr.com Saad: Enhancement of Solar Cell Modeling with MPPT Command Practice with an Electronic Edge Filter 

 

PV cell behaves equivalently to a current source shunted by a 
diode. The model is completed by a series resistor Rs due to the 
contribution of the base resistors and the junction front and 
back with front contacts and a shunt parallel resistor, Rp, which 
comes from the metal contacts and the leakage resistors on the 
periphery of the PV cell [17]. Figure 1 shows this behavior and 
Table I gives the parameters of our resistance components. 

 

 
Fig. 1.  Model of the PV cell. 

TABLE I.  RESISTANCE COMPONENT VALUES OF THE PV CELL 
MODEL 

Component Value 

Rs 0.01Ω 

Rp 10Ω 

 

The mathematical model for the current-voltage 
characteristic of a PV cell is given by [17]: 

 

I�� � I�� � I� �e

��
���.��


�.� � 1� � �������.����     (1) 
where I�� represents the current supplied by the cell when it 
operates as a generator, I�� represents the photocurrent of the 
cell depending on illumination and temperature, I� represents 
the saturation current, V�� represents the voltage across the cell, 
and V� � �.���  represents the thermodynamic potential with K	being the Boltzmann’s constant, T#	the effective temperature 
of the cells in Kelvin, q is the electron charge, n represents the 
ideality factor of the junction, R�  represents the shunt 
resistance that characterizes the leakage currents, and R� 
represents the serial resistance of various contact and 
connection resistances  

On the other hand, we can characterize the PV cell by a 
current	I##  that represents the highest current that a cell can 
deliver. It is a function of temperature, illumination 
wavelength, the area of active zone of the PV cell, and the 
mobility of the electrons. Also, we can characterize the cell by 
the voltage between the cell electrodes in the case of no charge 
in the output of the cell, 	V#'. It is a function of cell type, 
illumination wavelength, the material of active zone of the cell, 
and the type of contact between the active layer and the 
electrodes. In addition, the efficiency ratio of power,	(, can also 
characterize the PV cell. It is defined by [18,19]:  

( � )*+,)-� 	    (2) 
where P/01  represents the maximum power delivered by the 
cell and P23 represents the incident power to the area of the cell. 

Our proposed model is based on various electric 
characterizations of each element that are presented in Figure 1. 
Figure 2 illustrates the proposed model. The leakage current, 
presented by the resistance R�, is in series with the diode of 
connection. It is clear that the current delivered by the cell is 
augmented by the Ip term that represents the leakage current. 
The leakage R� can be carefully varied in the phase of 
construction. Thus, if his value is augmented, the current 
delivered to the charge is augmented and so the power. 

 

 
Fig. 2.  The proposed model. 

The current delivered by the proposed cell is: 

I�� � I�� � I� �e

��
���.��


�.� � 1� 4 �������.����     (3) 
The photonic current of the PV cell depends directly on the 

solar illumination and on the variation of the temperature. The 
following expression gives the photonic current [18]: 

I�� � 55678 9I��678 � k2;T# � T#678<=    (4) 
where I��_?@A is the photonic current under reference condition, k2 is the current sensitivity coefficient for the temperature, G is 
the real illumination, G?@A  is the illumination under the 
reference condition, T# is the real cell temperature, and T#_?@A is 
the cell temperature under the reference condition. 

 

 
Fig. 3.   Current- Output Voltage characteristic of the proposed model. 

Figure 3 represents the Current-Output Voltage 
characteristic and Figure 4 represents the Power-Output 
Voltage characteristic of the proposed model under standard 
conditions: 1000W/m

2
 illumination and 20°C temperature. The 

presented curves are similar with the results published 



Engineering, Technology & Applied Science Research Vol. 11, No. 4, 2021, 7501-7507 7503 
 

www.etasr.com Saad: Enhancement of Solar Cell Modeling with MPPT Command Practice with an Electronic Edge Filter 

 

previously in this field [5, 8, 10]. The characteristics of our 
model are summarized in Table II. The obtained results are 
similar with the results in [10, 13, 16]. 

 

 
Fig. 4.  Power – Output Voltage characteristic of the proposed model. 

TABLE II.  CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PROPOSED MODEL 

Characteristic Value 

Open circuit voltage (V) 0.575 

Short circuit current (A) 3.8 

Voltage at maximum power (V) 0.5 

Current at maximum power (A) 3.6 

Cells 1 
 

III. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PV CELL UNDER VARIATIONS 
OF TEMPERATURE AND ILLUMINATION 

Temperature is a very important characteristic in the PV 
cell behavior. Figures 5 and 6 present the influence of the 
temperature in the Current - Output Voltage and Power - 
Output Voltage characteristics under fixed illumination of 
1000W/m

2
. The curves show that the temperature negatively 

influences the open circuit voltage where the more the 
temperature increases the more the open circuit voltage 
decreases while the circuit current increases slightly. Thus, the 
maximum power of the PV cell undergoes a decrease when the 
temperature increases, which is confirmed in the curves of 
Figure 6. 

 

 
Fig. 5.  Influence of the temperature on the Current – Output Voltage 

characteristics. 

 
Fig. 6.  Influence of the temperature on the Power – Output Voltage 

characteristics. 

Figures 7 and 8 present the influence of the illumination in 
the Current - Output Voltage and Power - Output Voltage 
characteristics under a fixed temperature of 25°C. From the 
curves, when the illumination varies for a given temperature, 
the current of the circuit varies in proportion to the 
illumination, and at the same time, the voltage varies very little. 
In addition, power increases when the illumination increases 
due to the rise in the current. Thus the results show that the 
MPP varies clearly with illumination.  

 

 
Fig. 7.  Influence of the illumination on the Current – Output Voltage 

characteristics. 

 
Fig. 8.  Influence of the illumination on the Power – Output Voltage 
characteristics of the proposed model. 

IV. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PHOTOVOLTAIC CELL UNDER 

VARIATIONS OF MODEL RESISTANCES 

Figures 9 and 10 present the influence of the serial 
resistance Rs in the Current - Output Voltage and Power – 
Output Voltage characteristics. This resistance acts on the slope 



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www.etasr.com Saad: Enhancement of Solar Cell Modeling with MPPT Command Practice with an Electronic Edge Filter 

 

of the Current – Output Voltage characteristic but does not 
modify the output open circuit voltage and slightly decreases 
the circuit current value. However, the increase in the 
resistance value results in a decrease in the slope of the power 
curve and the values of the MPP.  

 

 
Fig. 9.  Influence of the serial resistance Rs on the Current – Output 

Voltage characteristics of the proposed model. 

 
Fig. 10.  Influence of the serial resistance Rs on the Power – Output Voltage 

characteristics of the proposed model. 

The resistance Rp takes into account the inevitable leaks of 
the current which occur between the terminals of the solar cell. 
This resistance has a high value, andits effect is mainly in the 
current generation part. It is for this reason that we put this 
resistance in series with the diode instead of putting it in 
parallel in our proposed model.  

 

 
Fig. 11.  Influence of the current leakage resistance Rp on the Current - 

Output Voltage characteristics of the proposed model. 

Figures 11 and 12 present the influence of the leakage 
current resistance Rp in the characteristics Current – Output 

Voltage and Power – Output Voltage. In the normal case, the 
influence of the parallel resistance on the Current – Output 
Voltage characteristic results in a slight decrease in the open 
circuit voltage and a decrease in the slope. In addition, the 
power supplied by the solar cell varies with this parallel 
resistance, the more this high resistance, the more important the 
supplied power. For our model, the simulation results confirm 
those mentioned above for a normal model. However, it is very 
clear from Figure 12 that we have increased the MPP, which is 
very important for a solar cell generator and is a clear 
advantage of the proposed model. 

 

 
Fig. 12.  Influence of the current leakage resistance Rp on the Power – 

Output Voltage characteristics of the proposed model. 

V. THE MPPT ALGORITHM 

This part demonstrates the algorithm that provides in each 
instance the maximum power delivered from the PV cell. 
Maximum power means finding the MPP of the proposed 
model. This method is named MPPT (Maximum Power Point 
Tracking). In this part, a command that can find this MPP is 
demonstrated. Figure 13 represents the MPP position delivered 
by the PV cell under variations of illumination and fixed 
temperature of 25°C. In addition, in order to assure that the 
solar cell operates at its MPP, controllers are utilized to 
minimize the error between the operating power and the 
maximum variable reference power based on optimal methods 
and depending on climatic conditions. Figure 14 presents the 
principal of our MPPT command. The used circuit is that of a 
tunable edge filter based on a microcontroller system. The 
purpose is to give maximum power without fluctuations. The 
organigram algorithm of the command MPP is given in Figure 
15.  

 

 
Fig. 13.  MPP position in the characteristics of the PV cell under 

illumination variation and 25°C. 



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www.etasr.com Saad: Enhancement of Solar Cell Modeling with MPPT Command Practice with an Electronic Edge Filter 

 

 
Fig. 14.  Command MPP, tunable Edge filter, in the PV generator: cell and 

charge. 

 
Fig. 15.  Organigram algorithm of the MPP command using a tunable Edge 

filter. 

For our MPP command and tunable Edge filter, the 
evolution of the power is analyzed after each voltage or current 
fluctuation. Thus, we measure the voltage and we calculate the 
current. After that, we calculate the power delivered by the 
solar cell at each tunable time interval according to the 
variation of lighting and the temperature. The basis of our 
electronic tunable edge filter is a PIC16F877A microcontroller, 
an optocoupler, a NAND logic component, a high and low side 
driver for external N-Channel MOSFET, and an N-channel 
MOSFET. The last component is used to control the adaptation 
stage in order to reach the MPP, see Figure 17. 

The reasoning is that we have a power value and we 
measure the new value. The difference between the two values 
must lie between the maximum edge and the minimum edge of 
the tunable filter represented by Pref(i) and Vref(i). This edge is 
defined in the microcontroller program each time. Once the 
value is determined and meets the criteria of the tunable filter, 
the MOSFET becomes busy in the adaptation stage and thus 
we have a maximum of power which is delivered to the load 
according to the duty cycle D. The simulation of our MPP 

command and the adaptation stage for different values of 
illumination under a constant temperature of 25°C is given in 
Figure 16. This Figure shows that the power is stable for a 
determined period for a constant value of illumination. Table 
III resumes the characteristic of our MPPT and shows the 
comparison with other methods that are presented in [20]. 
From the result, we can say that our proposed MPPT is 
practical and efficient in acquiring the MPP and controlling the 
DC/DC converter to the load. As an example of the usefulness 
of the proposed scheme and its encouraging results, it may be 
used to improve the use of the PV technology in hybrid 
vehicles [21]. 

 

 
Fig. 16.  Illustration of the power delivered to the charge after the 

determination of the MPP with the tunable edge filter. 

TABLE III.  COMPARISON OF MPPT TECHNIQ UES 

MPPT 

Technique 

Tunable 

Edge 

Filter 

P & O 

Incremental 

Conductance 

Perturbation 

Neural 

Network 

Type of sensor 

used 
Voltage 

Voltage 

and 

current 

Voltage and current 
Voltage 

and current 

Identification of 

PV panel 

parameters 

No No No Yes 

Complexity Low Low Average High 

Precision 96% 95% 98% 99% 

 

VI. CONCLUSION 

A new PV cell model was presented in this paper. The 
obtained results confirm the results of published previous 
works. The new model was subjected to temperature, 
illumination, and serial and leakage resistance variations. The 
influence of the position of the leakage variation in our model 
shows that our model can give more power. In addition, a 
MPPT command was presented. The command is an electronic 
tunable filter using a microcontroller system. The simulation 
results show that the proposed command is efficient in 
determining the MPP. 

 



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Fig. 17.  The electronic tunable edge filter for the MPP command. 

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