Comparison of regular and irregular 32 pulse density modulation patterns for induction heating

In this study, an induction heating (IH) application is carried out by transferring the maximum power extracted from photovoltaic (PV) panels to the stainless steel with the designed regular and irregular 32 pulse density modulation (PDM) controlled series resonant inverter. The main objective of this study is to analyse the changes in the system due to regular and irregular PDM patterns. Maximum power point tracker (MPPT) is used to control the output power at different solar irradiation values with varying PDM patterns. Regular and irregular PDM control methods are compared in terms of MPPT efficiency, cost, algorithm complexity, logic control structure and current/voltage stresses of the power switches. Zero current switching (ZCS) conditions are provided by using phase locked loop (PLL) technique at all power points of the PV system. The appropriate switching conditions are tracked continuously at resonant frequency, and therefore soft switching is realised. Perturb and observe (P&O) algorithm is used with the aim of tracking the maximum power in PV panels and high tracking efficiency is obtained with PDM-controlled P&O MPPT algorithm. ATMEL328P-AU microcontroller is used to control the inverter in the system.