The photovoltaic modules are defined by their current/voltage and power/voltage characteristics which are highly non-linear. These characteristics depend on the climatic conditions and the load, and they admitted one optimum operating point. For this reason, it is necessary to track the maximum power to maximize the PV system efficiency. In this paper, a nonlinear MPPT method based on sliding mode (SMC) is applied to track the maximum power. In this method, the proposed SMC should always calculate the output power of the PV system and optimized it by acting on the duty cycle of the DC/DC converter. To test the robustness of the proposed control strategy, the simulation results are compared with those obtained using the Perturbation and Observation Method (P&O). The comparative studies have shown the effectiveness of the proposed technique against the uncertainties and parameter variation.

Keywords: Photovoltaic system, MPPT technique, Sliding mode control, Optimization, DC/DC converter.