Design and Development of a Hybrid DC-DC Converter for Solar-Battery-Based Standalone Milk Vending Machine

Abstract

Dairying has become a major secondary source of income for several rural families. The easily perishable nature of milk increases the spoilage of the product and reduces the dairy farms' productivity in rural areas due to power supply shortage issues. In order to overcome the inaccessibility of proper preservation strategies, this chapter proposed a hybrid DC-DC converter for a solar battery-powered milk vending machine. This proposed system can work continuously and provides an uninterrupted power supply to maintain the milk quality at an optimum level. Moreover, the proposed system utilized a novel converter to reduce the number of power conversion stages and compact the system. Besides, the proposed converter can achieve a higher gain ratio with fewer components. Furthermore, a proper algorithmic-based control scheme has been implemented to maintain effective power flow management. Finally, to verify the feasibility and performance of the system, detailed results are obtained at different dynamic conditions, and various case studies are presented in this chapter.