MPPT ROS Package

ROS package for Victron Energy MPPT devices via VE-Direct Protocol from serial USB

Introduction

This repository is part of my end-of-degree project as mechanical engineer at University of Almería in Spain. The aim of this project is to install a PV system into an electric vehicle, creating a data sender from the MPPT device into the ros-system.

How it works

MPPT Connection

This software is tested with a VE.Direct to USB Interface cable

Topic publisher

At the moment, it sends the most important data from the ve-direct protocol, which are defined in mppt.msg:

• Battery Voltage (v_bat) - float64
• Battery Current (i_bat) - float64
• Solar Panels Voltage (v_pv) - float64
• Solar Panel Power (p_pv) - float64

Installing the package

Install the package from the distro repo (kinetic)

sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-ros_mppt

Or you can also clone the package from github repo into your catkin workspace and build as usual

$ git clone https://github.com/AaronPB/ros_mppt.git

Customize the sender packets

Depending on the interested values from the serial communication interface, it is possible to define more values into the package.

Check the ros_mppt documentation to learn how to define more values.

MPPT valid values:

Implemented	Label	Units	Description
✓	V	mV	Main (battery) voltage
✓	I	mA	Battery current
✓	VPV	mV	Panel voltage
✓	PPV	W	Panel power
-	PID	-	Product ID
-	SER#	-	Serial Number
-	HSDS	-	Day sequence number (0...364)
-	MPPT	-	Tracker operation mode
-	ERR	-	Error code
-	CS	-	State of operation
-	H19	0.01 kW/h	Yield Total (user resettable counter)
-	H20	0.01 kW/h	Yield today
-	H21	W	Maximum power today
-	H22	0.01 kW/h	Yield yesterday
-	H23	W	Maximum power yesterday

Documentation

MPPT ROS WIKI

• [ROS org] ros_mppt

My other repositories for MPPT data management

VE Direct MPPT data reader

Visit this repository if you are looking for a ve-direct protocol registration into a file (in this case, in a .xls file)

• [Github] VE.Direct MPPT reader

VE.Direct Protocol Documentation

• [PDF] VE.Direct Protocol - Version 3.25

• [PDF] BlueSolar HEX protocol MPPT

• [WIKI] MPPT Solar Charger Error Codes

TODO List

• Custom ros messages sender (mppt topic)
• Log system
• Automatic USB port identification
• Disconnection handler with timeout requests

License

ros_mppt is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0, detailed in the LICENSE file.