Design and Implementation of Mobile Active Two-Axis Solar Tracker with Reflector Based on Particle Swarm Fuzzy Controller

Abstract

Sun tracking system, or solar tracker, is an electronic device consisting of several electrical and mechanical elements, which serves to guide the solar panels in order to make them follow the sun position accurately and to generate the maximum solar energy reception. Sun tracking system is a solution offered in order to use solar energy optimally. The two-axis solar tracking system can absorb solar energy better than a single axis solar tracking or PV fixed system. The two-axis active sun tracking system uses an LDR (Light Dependent Resistor) sensor in order to capture the powerful solar lighting to be received by PV (photovoltaic). Four LDR sensors are used to represent the position of the sun that is north, south, west, and east. This research applies a modified particle swarm fuzzy-based control to be used in the system so that the solar panel system is more effective and responsive to sunlight position changes. The results show that the control method is capable of applying well with a 70-degree reflector. This can be noticed from the results of the steady-state error performance index in the pitch and the yaw tests that are 0.638% and 0.312%, whereas for the other performance indexes including rise time, settling time and Maximum Overshoot (MOV) for both tests are 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 0% and 4 seconds, 6 seconds and 0% respectively. The mobile active solar tracker built can increase energy gain of 43.01% compared to fixed system.