Parameter Estimation of Photovoltaic Models via Cuckoo Search

Since conventional methods are incapable of estimating the parameters of Photovoltaic (PV) models with high accuracy, bioinspired algorithms have attracted significant attention in the last decade. Cuckoo Search (CS) is invented based on the inspiration of brood parasitic behavior of some cuckoo species in combination with the Levy flight behavior. In this paper, a CS-based parameter estimation method is proposed to extract the parameters of single-diode models for commercial PV generators. Simulation results and experimental data show that the CS algorithm is capable of obtaining all the parameters with extremely high accuracy, depicted by a low Root-Mean-Squared-Error (RMSE) value. The proposed method outperforms other algorithms applied in this study.