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Mustafa 2017

This document describes a two-axis solar tracking system designed to maximize the efficiency of solar energy collection. It uses an Arduino Uno controller along with DC motors, a gearbox, light dependent resistors (LDRs), angle sensors, and other components. The system tracks the sun's position in two stages - first using indirect sensing via sun-earth relationships, then directly sensing the sun's position with LDR sensors to fine-tune the angles. This allows it to track the sun accurately even in cloudy or dusty conditions. Experimental results showed the tracking system increased energy generation by 10-40% compared to a fixed system.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
12 views4 pages

Mustafa 2017

This document describes a two-axis solar tracking system designed to maximize the efficiency of solar energy collection. It uses an Arduino Uno controller along with DC motors, a gearbox, light dependent resistors (LDRs), angle sensors, and other components. The system tracks the sun's position in two stages - first using indirect sensing via sun-earth relationships, then directly sensing the sun's position with LDR sensors to fine-tune the angles. This allows it to track the sun accurately even in cloudy or dusty conditions. Experimental results showed the tracking system increased energy generation by 10-40% compared to a fixed system.

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hemanthanu216
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© © All Rights Reserved
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The 8th International Renewable Energy Congress (I REC 2017)

Direct and Indirect Sensing two-axis


Solar Tracking System
Falah 1. Mustafa*
A.Salam Al-Ammri, Farouk F. Ahmad
Solar energy research center, Renewable energy Mechatronics Engineering Department
Directorate, University of Baghdad
Higher education and scientific research Ministry Baghdad, Traq
Baghdad, Iraq [email protected],
Email:[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract- The main goal of this project is to design a very Global wanning can be shown through some of the natural
precise solar tracker. The project is divided into two parts; phenomenon around the globe like the severe weather
hardware and software. Hardware part generally composed of conditions. Solar energy is the energy derived from the sun
solar panel, two-DC motors with gearbox, LDR sensor module in the form of solar irradiation. Solar energy is the most
and electronic circuit. Software part represents the thinking inexhaustible, renewable source of energy known to
behavior of the system, that is how the system acting under
several weather conditions. In this work sensing of the sun
humanity. In order to increase the efficiency of solar energy
position carried out in two stages primary and secondary. systems, solar tracker is added at the expense of system's
Primary stage or indirect sensing performed via sun-earth complexity and cost. The two basic categories of trackers are
relationship as a coarse adjustment and second stage or direct single axis and dual axis. Single axis tracker has one axis of
sensing performed via set of LDR sensors as output tuning to freedom, vertical or horizontal. Dual axis tracker has both a
trims the azimuth and altitude angles. If the weather is cloudy vertical and a horizontal axis of freedom, so it able to track
or dusty, the tracking system uses primary stage or sun-earth the position of the sun precisely.
geometrical relationships only to identify the location of the A prototype of the automatic two-axis solar tracking system
sun; so the system tracks the position of the sun regardless the with a new design of sun-position tracker mechanism and
weather condition. The energy extracted from photovoltaic
(PV) or any solar collector depends on solar irradiance. For
wireless supervisory is designed in this paper. The solar
maximum extraction of energy from the sun, the solar collector tracker mechanism is composed of Arduino UNO controller,
panel should always be normal to the incident radiation Solar DC motors, gear box, LDR sensor module, angle sensor,
trackers moves the solar collector to follow the sun path and timing circuit, Bluetooth module and motor driving circuit.
keeps the orientation of the solar collector at an optimal tilt Arduino UNO sends command to DC motors to specity
angle. Solar tracking system improves substantially the energy elevation and azimuth angles of solar panel in which to
efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) panel. In this paper, an maintain the panel always nonnal to sun light. Two angle
automatic dual axis solar tracking system is designed and sensors are used to measure the physical angles on both
developed using Light Dependent Resistor (LDR) and DC outlet shafts of azimuth and elevation to make sure the
motors on a mechanical structure with gear arrangement. Two-
axis solar tracking (azimuth angle as well as altitude angle) is
desired angles are reached. Set of four LDR light sensor are
implemented through Arduino UNO controller based on Sun- used to trim the errors of altitude and azimuth angles. The
Earth Geometry. The results indicated that the automatic solar parameters of the tracking system are monitored remotely on
tracking system is more reliable and efficient than fixed one. the supervisor and control computer program through
Bluetooth module. As a result of experiments the power
Keywords- Arduino UNO; LDR; Photovoltaic (PV) panel; Dual- generated by the proposed tracking system is increased in
Axis Solar Tracking System; Azimuth angle; Elevation angle. the overall of about 10% ~ 40% more than fixed angle
system in general.
1. INTRODUCTION
At the present time, climate change on the world is at a II. SOLAR TRACKING STRATEGY
delicate level. Climate change can be divided into two
classes, human and natural causes. Natural causes of climate To track the position of the sun quickly, the Arduino UNO
changes are ocean current, solar variations and earth orbital controller should firstly calculate the theoretical through
changes. The major part of climate changes caused by following equations:
human is man-made greenhouse gases emission. Altitude ~ m.: fF..>i' -m:. ~(l)
Azimuth ~ e [{i.JJ'.ii' e i1.F.. ~ a:u(2)
978-1-5090-6751-0/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE wher: Declination angle : Local latitude : Hour angle
Figure2:System design block diagram

B-Sun position sensing method used in the control circuit

To track the sun it is vital to locate the position of the sun


accurately. In this work sensing of the sun position carried
out in two stages primary and secondary. Primary stage or
orlh indirect sensing performed via sun-earth relationship as a
( 180· )
coarse adjustment and second stage or direct sensing
performed via set of LDR sensors as output tuning to trims
the azimuth and altitude angles. If the weather is cloudy or
West (90" ) dusty, the tracking system uses primary stage or sun-earth
Figure 1: Azimuth and Altitude angles[3] geometrical relationships only to identify the location of the
sun; so the system tracks the position of the sun regardless
The theoretical value of altitude and azimuth anglesare the weather condition. LDR sensor module consists of four
translated into digital commands for driving DC motors to light dependent resistor or cadmium sulphide cell; LDR is a
the corresponding position. Then, the system automatically resistor whose resistance decreases with increase in light
trims the altitude and azimuth angle of the PV panel intensity. These four LDR are placed on a circular plate and
according to feedback signal of the proposed LDR sensor separated by 90 ° space rotation through perpendicular
module. The sunlight sensor module consists of fourLDR- rectangular plastic sheets.Each LDR is placed in series with
sensors. Two angle sensors are placed on outlet shafts of a resistor of 1kOand Wheatstone bridge circuit is formed
altitude and azimuth angles for measuring the final value of using all four LDRs and four resistors as shown in Figure3.lf
altitude and azimuth angles and transmitting these values to one of the LDR gets more light intensity than the others,
the supervisory computer user interface [1-3]. node voltage difference will be received as analog signal at
the ADC (analog to digital converter) channel of the
III. SOLAR TRACTING SYSTEM Arduino UNO. Arduino UNO controller analyzes this data
DESCRIPTION and generates a logic signal to actuate the motor to move the
A. Schematic arranging tracker to a position where equal light is being illuminated
on pair of LDRs. The Arduino UNO is programmed to
The main goal of this project is to design a very precise generate the logic signal for azimuth as well as altitude
solar tracker. The project is divided into two parts; hardware angles and motor rotation in either clockwise or anti-
and software. The main constituents of the tracking system clockwise direction depending on the shadow on LDRs due
are shown in Figure2. Hardware part generally composed of to rectangular plastic sheets. If all the four LDRs are equally
solar panel, two-DC motors with gearbox, LDR sensor illuminated by the sun, then the analog voltage signals
module and electronic circuit. Software part represents the received at the ADC channel of the micro controller will
thinking behavior of the system, that is how the system have equal values and the micro controller will not generate
acting under several weather conditions. any logic signal to actuate the motors.

RealTime Clock c=)

Computer System
.
FIB
.
R7 RII
to

Figure3:Wheatstone bridge circuit for the LDR sensor system


angle on the surface of a solar cell will decrease accordingly,
C-Mechanical structuredepiction which leads to reduce the resulting power as well.
The whole mechanical structure of the proposed dual axis On September 30th 2014the behaviors of azimuth and
solar tracking system is shown in Figure 4.LDR sensor altitude angles in degrees during whole daylight are depicted
moduleis attached in a plane parallel with solar collector. A in Figures 6 and 7, according to the equations on which the
plastic box covered with tin foil is used for covering the solar tracker system is based.
electronic control circuit. Two DC motors with gearbox
arrangement are used to obtain the required movements. I 1 I I I I I I I I I I
Also, aluminum structure is used to hold the solar panel. 10- +-
I
--I -1- -
I I
+-
I
--I -I -
I I
- +-
I I 1 I I
-+ ---.j--~+---1--~+---1--
I I
I I I I I I I I I I! I I I I I I I I I I
9- T I -1- - T I -I - - "I I -I - - "I I -I - - I T -I - - I T I - - 1- T I - -
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
-.l _I __ L -.l _I __ L ..1 _I __ L .l ~ __ L 1.. - Tracker --.l __
I I I I I I I I I I I - Fixed I
.: I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
·u 1- T ---t -1- - T
~ I I I I I
6- -'-- J
I I
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
5 I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

,,
\ 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 11 12 13 14 24 25 26 27
" 29 30

Figure 5:Efficiency of tracking and fixed systems during 30


minutes

(I " ......' J
I I I i

-----1---- 1i--
I I I

--i-:- --I
-1 _
I
_ l- - - _L -
I
- - - - -
I
-1_ - _l- - -~
I
- - -:l-- !

! I I I I I I !

Azimuth

Figure 4: Mechanical structure ofthe tracking system Figure 6:Azimuth-altitude relationship for the tracking system

VI. EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS 250 ------


I
I
I
I

- _1- _ _ - Azimuth

As a result, it is obvious that two-axis tracker gains more - Altitude


I

energy than fixed angle system. As a comparison between


two systems, one way is to calculate the efficiency of PV
cell in both systems. The efficiency is the most commonly
used parameter to compare the performance of one solar cell
with another. Efficiency is defmed as the ratio of energy
output from the solar cell to input energy from the -soL,---'----~-"-------'cIO---"c----'I2~---"-Il-~I4:-.--C0 17c---+
1S--C1CC,- - c I S ----.J
sun. Efficiency can be calculated from equation (3). lime

(3) Figure 7:Azimuth-altitude relationship with daylight time (hour) for


the tracking system
Where Pmaxis the maximum power received from
PV cell and Pin is the input powerfor the efficiency Figure 7 shows that the sunrise is at 00 altitude and 94.68 0
calculation is 1KW/m2 or 100mW/cm2. Thus the input azimuth, so the sunrise starts from the earth's northern half,
power for a 650x306mm2 cell is 198.9W. Figure 5 and the sun stays at that part almost for an hour and a half in
represents a comparison of efficiency (11) in both tracking the morning and the same in the evening. The two curves
and fixed angle systems. continue to rise till noon; then the azimuth angle increases
When previewing Figure 5, it is obvious that the quickly, shortly before midday, while the altitude angle
efficiency of tracking system keeps its levels equally with a slows at that range. The altitude curve is symmetric about
slight difference because the incident light is normal to the noon time while the azimuth curve is negative symmetric
solar cell at all times. On the other hand with fixed angle about noon time. After noon point, the altitude angle value
system as the sun passes across the sky, the incident light starts to decrease gradually with the same rate in which it
reaches the noon time. During that time, the azimuth angle [4] Zolkapli, M., AI-Junid S. A., Othman Z., Manut, A., and
keeps on increasing as time is going on. Figure 6 illustrates MohdZulkifli A. High-efficiency dual-axis solar tracking
the relation between the azimuth and altitude angles and the developement using Arduino .IEEE .International
region of the curve is convex for the same date. It is apparent Conference on Technology, Informatics, Management,
from these figures, the rigorous comparison will be in the Engineering & Environment.pp.43-47 (2013)
convex range between the fixed panel and the tracker one
because the sun will be in the southern part of the earth and
the fixed one is directed toward the south originally, so a
noticeable difference will be between the two. But, honestly
the sun ray was delayed to emit after the sunrise by few
minutes because of the halo of smoke and dust that blocks
the horizon. The response is the same relative to sunset but
with larger effect, so the sun appearance time is clearly less
than the real day length.

v. CONCLUSIONS
Solar tracking mechanisms improve the energy gain of solar
power plants. A dual-axis tracking system is generally the
one that reaches the highest energy gain in every region. It is
therefore the most versatile system, since it can be installed
anywhere, guaranteeing a high energy gain. Solar trackers
are recommended everywhere from an energetic point of
view, since they always increase the amount of collected
energy. Two degrees of freedom orientation is feasible.
Arduino Uno controller is used to control the position of DC
motors which ensures point to point intermittent motion
resulting from the DC geared motors.Altitude angle is
restricted between 0' to 8 r and azimuth angle is restricted
between 60' to 300' in Baghdad.Standalone working and
wireless communication is achieved with computer which
makes the system reliable and observable. The use of LDR
sensors and high precision angle sensors guarantees a more
accurate and efficient tracking system.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The researcher would like to express the profound sense of


appreciationto: Mechatronics Engineering Department /
Al-Khwarizmi College of Engineering / University of
Baghdad and Solar Energy Research Center / Renewable
Energy Directorate / Ministry of Science and Technology;
for their invaluable support and constructive directions.

REFERANCES

[1] Power from the sun. (n.d.). Retrieved from


http://www.powerfromthesun.net/Bookl
[2] The Sun's Position. (2013, March 28). Tn Photovoltaic
Education Network, from
http://pveducation.org/pvcdrom/properties-of-s unlightl suns-
position
[3] Zhan, T., Lin, W., Tsai, M. and Wang, G. Design and
Implementation of the Dual-axis Solar Tracking System.
TEEE.37th Annual Computer Software and Applications
Conference. pp.276-277 (20 II)

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