International Journal of Power Electronics and Drive Systems (IJPEDS)
Vol 17, No 1: March 2026

Design and implementation of a buck converter-based PV emulator using dynamic evolution control

Samosir, Ahmad Saudi (Unknown)
Despa, Dikpride (Unknown)
Gusmedi, Herri (Unknown)
Ferbangkara, Sony (Unknown)



Article Info

Publish Date
01 Mar 2026

Abstract

This paper presents the design, simulation, and experimental implementation of a photovoltaic (PV) emulator based on a buck converter controlled using the dynamic evolution control (DEC) technique. The proposed system accurately reproduces the nonlinear current-voltage (I-V) and power-voltage (P-V) characteristics of a commercial GREEN CELL SM100-18P (100 Wp) PV module under standard test conditions (1000 W/m2, 25 °C). The electrical characteristics of the reference module are embedded in the controller through a lookup table (LUT), which is integrated with the DEC algorithm to enable adaptive real-time regulation of output voltage and current. System modeling and validation are first conducted in MATLAB/Simulink to analyze steady-state and transient performance. A hardware prototype based on an XL4016 buck converter and Arduino Nano microcontroller is then implemented, with real-time monitoring provided via an ILI9341 TFT display. Experimental results show that the emulator achieves a maximum power deviation of 0.8%, a normalized root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.015, a settling time of approximately 12 ms, overshoot below 1.5%, voltage ripple under 2%, and peak conversion efficiency of 94% near the MPP region. These results confirm that the proposed PV emulator provides accurate static and dynamic reproduction of PV characteristics, offering a low-cost, stable, and repeatable platform for laboratory-scale evaluation of PV-related power electronic converters.

Copyrights © 2026






Journal Info

Abbrev

IJPEDS

Publisher

Subject

Control & Systems Engineering Electrical & Electronics Engineering

Description

International Journal of Power Electronics and Drive Systems (IJPEDS, ISSN: 2088-8694, a SCOPUS indexed Journal) is the official publication of the Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science (IAES). The scope of the journal includes all issues in the field of Power Electronics and drive systems. ...