Dynamically reconfigurable photovoltaic system
| DWPI Title: Dynamically reconfigurable energy harvesting photovoltaic system used in spacecraft, has power management circuit whose input is coupled to pairs of sub-array power nodes |
| Abstract: A PV system composed of sub-arrays, each having a group of PV cells that are electrically connected to each other. A power management circuit for each sub-array has a communications interface and serves to connect or disconnect the sub-array to a programmable power grid. The power grid has bus rows and bus columns. A bus management circuit is positioned at a respective junction of a bus column and a bus row and is programmable through its communication interface to connect or disconnect a power path in the grid. As a result, selected sub-arrays are connected by selected power paths to be in parallel so as to produce a low system voltage, and, alternately in series so as to produce a high system voltage that is greater than the low voltage by at least a factor of ten. |
| Use: Dynamically reconfigurable energy harvesting photovoltaic system used in airborne, space borne aircraft such as satellite and unmanned aerial vehicle and residence. |
| Advantage: The low voltage and high voltage can be produced alternately, so that need for separate voltage boost converter can be reduced and the power efficiency can be improved. |
| Novelty: The system has photovoltaic cells which generate voltage. The input of power management circuit is coupled to pairs of sub-array power nodes. A bus management circuit is positioned at respective junction of bus column and bus row. The power management circuit is programed through the communication interface, so that selected sub-arrays are connected by selected power paths in parallel so as to produce low voltage at harvested energy output node, and selected sub-arrays are connected by selected power paths in series, so as to produce high voltage. |
| Filed: 4/19/2016 |
| Application Number: US15133163A |
| Tech ID: SD 12399.7 |
| This invention was made with Government support under Contract No. DE-NA0003525 awarded by the United States Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration. The Government has certain rights in the invention. |
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