Abstract: Partial shading is one of the main causes of output power loss and module mismatch of photovoltaic（PV） arrays. This paper proposes a reconfiguration method based on an improved mayfly algorithm（IMA） for PV arrays with a total cross-tied（TCT）topology. The shadows on the PV array are uniformly distributed by changing the electrical connections inside the PV array as a way to equalize the line currents of the PV array. The IMA is compared with the Sudoku reconfiguration method and six other heuristic algorithms by two evaluation criteria, namely mismatch loss and power boost percentage, for 10 shading cases of 10×10and 10×7 PV arrays, respectively, and the irradiation distribution diagram of the PV array reconfigurated by the IMA is presented. The results show that IMA can effectively improve the PV array output power and reduce the mismatch loss. The output PV curves all tend to show a single peak, and the reconfigurated results are all superior to the other methods. In addition,hardware-in-the-loop experiments on the RTLAB-based platform verify the hardware feasibility.