Design of an Embedded Solar Tracking System Based on GPS and Astronomical Equations

Author(s):  
Fawzi M. Al-Naima ◽  
Ramzy S. Ali ◽  
Ahmed J. Abid

This article presents the design of a reliable, accurate, and easy to install solar dual axis tracking system. The system utilizes the GPS for fixing the time, date and location in terms of longitude and latitude. Approximations having high accuracy of the astronomical equations to represent the declination angle and the equation of time are selected to determine the sun locations needed by the designed tracking system in any chosen location on earth. The proposed system is standalone, accurate, durable, reliable, and cost efficient. Annual energy assessments of the system are also given.

2014 ◽  
Vol 704 ◽  
pp. 350-354
Author(s):  
Muhammad Ikram Mohd Rashid ◽  
Nik Fadhil bin Nik Mohammed ◽  
Suliana binti Ab Ghani ◽  
Noor Asiah Mohamad

The energy extracted from photovoltaic (PV) or solar thermal depends on solar insolation. For the extraction of maximum energy from the sun, the plane of the solar collector should always be normal to the incident radiation. Sun trackers move the solar collector to follow the sun trajectories and keep the orientation of the solar collector at an optimal tilt angle. Energy efficiency of solar PV or solar thermal can be substantially improved using solar tracking system. In this paper, an automatic solar tracking system has been designed and developed using DC motor on a mechanical structure with gear arrangement. The movements of two-axis solar trackers for the elevation and azimuth angles are programmed according to the mathematical calculation by using the Borland C++ Builder. Performance of the proposed system over the important parameter like solar radiation received on the collector, maximum hourly electrical power has been evaluated and compared with those for fixed tilt angle solar collector.


Author(s):  
Balaji K ◽  
Dharshan T R ◽  
Mahendran P ◽  
Priyadharsini R

The renewable energies, solar energy is the only energy gained its popularity and importance quickly. Through the solar tracking system, we can produce an abundant amount of energy which makes the solar panel’s workability much more efficient. Perpendicular proportionality of the solar panel with the sun rays is the reason lying behind its efficiency. Pecuniary, its installation charge is high provided cheaper options are also available. The main control circuit is based upon NodeMcu microcontroller. Programming of this device is done in the manner that the LDR sensor, in accordance with the detection of the sun rays, will provide direction to the DC Motor that in which way the solar panel is going to revolve. Through this, the solar panel is positioned in such a manner that the maximum amount of sun rays could be received. Though a hike in the efficiency of the solar panel had a handsome increase still perfection was a far-fetched goal for it. Below 40%, most of the panels still hover to operate. Consequently, peoples are compelled to purchase a number of panels in order to meet their energy demands or purchase single systems with large outputs. Availability of the solar cells types with higher efficiencies is on provided they are too costly to purchase. Ways to be accessed for increasing solar panel efficiencies are a plethora in number still one of the ways to be availed for accomplishing the said purpose while reducing costs, is tracking. Tracking helps in the wider projection of the panel to the Sun with increased power output. It could be dual or single axis tracker


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raúl Gregor ◽  
Yoshihiko Takase ◽  
Jorge Rodas ◽  
Leonardo Carreras ◽  
Derlis Gregor ◽  
...  

The smart grid and distributed generation based on renewable energy applications often involve the use of information and communication technology (ICT) coupled with advanced control and monitoring algorithms to improve the efficiency and reliability of the electrical grid and renewable generation systems. Photovoltaic (PV) systems have been recently applied with success in the fields of distributed generation due to their lower environmental impact where the electrical energy generation is related to the amount of solar irradiation and thus the angle of incident ray of the sun on the surface of the modules. This paper introduces an integration of ICTs in order to achieve the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) using a biaxial solar tracking system for PV power applications. To generate the references for the digital control of azimuth and elevation angles a Global Positioning System (GPS) by satellites is used which enables acquiring the geographic coordinates of the sun in real-time. As a total integration of the system a communication platform based on the 802.15.4 protocol for the wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is adopted for supervising and monitoring the PV plant. A 2.4 kW prototype system is implemented to validate the proposed control scheme performance.


Author(s):  
Allan Soon Chan Roong ◽  
Shin-Horng Chong

This paper presents the design and development of a laboratory-scale single axis solar tracking system. The chronological method was implemented into the system because it has high accuracy and can save more energy as compared to other types of solar tracking system. The laboratory-scale single axis solar tracking system can be used to identify the suitable and safe workspace for the installation of the actual solar tracking system plant. Besides, the validity of the laboratory-scale single axis solar tracking system was examined experimentally. The angle of rotation, per hour is preferable to be implemented into the designed laboratory-scale single axis sun tracking system due to the high performance ratio which is 0.83 and can save the energy up  to 25% during sunny days.


2013 ◽  
Vol 724-725 ◽  
pp. 43-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu En Wu ◽  
Kuo Chan Huang

This paper presents a smart dual-axis solar tracking system, its architecture includes sensors, embedded controllers, AC motors, Integrated electric putter design biaxial institutions, and the GSM automatic report of fault notification, to achieve autonomous tracking solar track system and adjust the solar panels to reach the maximum smooth by tracking the solar azimuth angle and elevation angle, and ensure that the solar panels with the sun to maintain the vertical in any time and any place, thus achieving the best power efficiency. This system proposed a dual-axis design, and an embedded controller used as the main system controller to detect voltage difference and determine the solar azimuth angle with four groups of CDS as a sensing element. To lock the sun, the solar panels be perpendicular via the moving of AC motor (EW) and motorized faders (north-south). The control system software using C language can be extremely fast and accurate tracking of the solar angle, and dual-axis operation with recovery mode to save the power loss. Finally, we have the actual analysis and verification of benefit of power generation in this paper, from this experimental results, we can verify the integration of build dual-axis solar tracking system and solar power system have promoted 30% generating power capacity more than fixed solar power system and has low failure rate. It can improve the problem of traditional tracking system reliability and greatly enhance the usefulness of this system.


Author(s):  
Nur Farahida Mohd Shamsuddin Tan ◽  
◽  
Muhammad Heidzer Zainal Abidin ◽  
Lukman Iqbal Hussein ◽  
Mohd Hezri Mokhtar ◽  
...  

The project is to design an active solar tracking system which able to track the sunlight with the aid of light dependent resistor (LDR) as input sensor to read the intensity of sunlight. The solar tracking system uses platform as a base and it is moved by a servo motor as the platform needs to be moved towards the sunlight to get the optimum light. The solar tracking system is programmed by using microcontroller Arduino Uno as a main controller. After the setup of the hardware and program, the tracking motion of the tracking system has been implemented to track the sun based on sunlight direction. In this work, it is designed that the motion of the tracking system is depends on the value read by LDR. As a conclusion, the solar tracking system can increase the solar panels efficiency by keeping the solar panels perpendicular with sun’s position.


This paper proposes a design of solar tracking system for capturing maximum amount of solar energy by rotating the solar panel. From sun rise to sun set, the sun changes its direction several times due to which the static solar panel fails to capture maximum solar energy throughout the day. Therefore, it is required to develop a system that is capable of generating electrical energy by making use of maximum amount of solar energy. This paper discloses about the rotatable solar tracking system capable of rotating along the sun direction for tracking maximum amount of solar energy. This advanced technology not only utilize the solar energy more effectively but also improves the efficiency of whole system.


Author(s):  
Abhishek Kumar Tripathi ◽  
Mangalpady Aruna ◽  
Ch. S.N. Murthy

Solar Photovoltaic (PV) energy conversion has gained much attention nowadays. The output power of PV panel depends on the condition under which the panel is working, such as solar radiation, ambient temperature, dust, wind speed and humidity. The amount of falling sunlight on the panel surface (i.e., solar radiation) directly affects its output power. In order to maximize the amount of falling sunlight on the panel surface, a solar tracking PV panel system is introduced. This paper describes the design, development and fabrication of the solar PV panel tracking system. The designed solar tracking system is able to track the position of the sun throughout the day, which allows more sunlight falling on the panel surface. The experimental results show that there was an enhancement of up to a 64.72% in the output power of the PV panel with reference to the fixed orientation PV panel. Further, this study also demonstrates that the full load torque of the tracking system would be much higher than the obtained torque, which is required to track the position of the sun. This propounds, that the proposed tracking system can also be used for a higher capacity PV power generation system.


2015 ◽  
Vol 77 (17) ◽  
Author(s):  
Azwaan Zakariah ◽  
Mahdi Faramarzi ◽  
Jasrul Jamani Jamian ◽  
Mohd Amri Md Yunus

Nowadays, renewable energy such as solar power has become important for electricity generation, and solar power systems have been installed in homes. Furthermore, solar tracking systems are being continuously improved by researchers around the world, who focus on achieving the best design and thus maximizing the efficiency of the solar power system. In this project, a fuzzy logic controller has been integrated and implemented in a medium-scale solar tracking system to achieve the best real-time orientation of a solar PV panel toward the sun. This project utilized dual-axis solar tracking with a fuzzy logic intelligent method. The hardware system consists of an Arduino UNO microcontroller as the main controller and Light Dependent Resistor (LDR) sensors for sensing the maximum incident intensity of solar irradiance. Initially, two power window motors (one for the horizontal axis and the other for the vertical axis) coordinate and alternately rotate to scan the position of the sun. Since the sun changes its position all the time, the LDR sensors detect its position at five-minute intervals through the level of incident solar irradiance intensity measured by them. The fuzzy logic controller helps the microcontroller to give the best inference concerning the direction to which the solar PV panel should rotate and the position in which it should stay. In conclusion, the solar tracking system delivers high efficiency of output power with a low power intake while it operates.


2016 ◽  
Vol 835 ◽  
pp. 731-736 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarai Lekchaum ◽  
Kitsakorn Locharoenrat

In this article, we simply design the solar tracking system and construct a solar collector system for year 2015 in Bangkok, Thailand. The analytical model is calculated via altitudes and azimuth angles of the sun. Our experimental result is agreement well with the calculation in terms of altitude and azimuth. This solar tracking system is therefore applied to a dish solar collector showing the thermal energy of 961.69 W at a maximum temperature of 543.3K with a maximum electric power of 3.395W from our thermoelectric modules.


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