An improved Ripple Correlation Control (iRCC) algorithm is introduced to enhance the capability of conventional Ripple Correlation Control (cRCC) in tracking the maximum power point under both uniform irradiation and partial shading conditions (PSC). The proposed iRCC framework consists of two functional stages: the first stage identifies the Global Maximum Power Point (GMPP) under PSC, while the second stage performs the standard ripple correlation control to operate the photovoltaic (PV) array at the detected GMPP. Under uniform irradiation, the algorithm remains in the second stage, switching to the GMPP detection stage only when it identifies dynamic variations in environmental conditions. The effectiveness of the proposed iRCC is validated through MATLAB simulations and hardware implementation. Comparative analysis with the conventional RCC method confirms significant performance enhancement. The results show that the proposed iRCC accurately tracks the GMPP, outperforming the traditional cRCC approach. Under PSC-1, the proposed iRCC achieves up to 131% higher output power than cRCC. In PSC-2, where multiple shading-induced power peaks occur, the power yield of iRCC is nearly identical to that of cRCC. These findings demonstrate that the proposed iRCC can significantly surpass the performance of cRCC depending on the shading pattern.