Automatic Solar Tracking System Research Articles

A Review of Time-Based Solar Photovoltaic Tracking Systems

Solar energy is the cleanest and most abundant form of energy that can be obtained from the Sun. Solar panels convert this energy to generate solar power, which can be used for various electrical purposes, particularly in rural areas. Maximum solar power can be generated only when the Sun is perpendicular to the panel, which can be achieved only for a few hours when using a fixed solar panel system, hence the development of an automatic solar tracking system. Over the years, different solar tracking systems have been proposed and developed, and a few have been reviewed in the literature. However, the existing review works have not adequately provided a comprehensive survey and taxonomies of these solar tracking systems to show the trends and possible further research direction. This paper aims to bridge these gaps by extensively reviewing these time-based solar tracking systems based on axis rotation and drive types. Lessons learned from the comprehensive review have been highlighted and discussed. Finally, critical open research issues are identified and elaborated.

Design Parameters of Parabolic Solar Water Heater with Inbuilt Automatic Solar Tracking System

Abstract: This paper focuses on developing novel technique for a solar water heating system. The novel solar system comprises a parabolic dish concentrator, conical absorber and water heater. In this system, the conical absorber tube directly absorbs solar radiation from the sun and the parabolic dish concentrator reflects the solar radiations towards the conical absorber tube from all directions, therefore both radiations would significantly improve the thermal collector efficiency. The working fluid water is stored at the bottom of the absorber tubes. The absorber tubes get heated and increases the temperature of the working fluid inside of the absorber tube and causes the working fluid to partially evaporate. The partially vaporized working fluid moves in the upward direction due to buoyancy effect and enters the heat exchanger. When fresh water passes through the heat exchanger, temperature of the vapour decreases through heat exchange. This leads to condensation of the vapour and forms liquid phase. The working fluid returns to the bottom of the collector absorber tube by gravity. Hence, this will continue as a cyclic process inside the system. The proposed investigation shows an improvement of collector efficiency, enhanced heat transfer and a quality water heating system.

Improving the performance of a modified solar distiller with phase change material and parabolic trough collector.

The solar stills can solve the problem of freshwater shortage for the people living in remote areas. Through this work, the performance of hybrid solar desalination arrangement was investigated. The system comprised of parabolic trough solar collector, automatic solar tracking system, separation room, modified solar still, two condensation units, feed water tank, and supplementary and measuring tools. The effect of using various water flow rates on the effectiveness of parabolic trough solar collector was tested. Also, the influences of integrating condenser to the modified solar still with and without phase change material were studied. The experimental results revealed that the best flow rate for parabolic trough solar collector was obtained as 10 L/h (100 L/day), where its effectivity was 61%. Under this condition, the obtained freshwater was around 61 L/day from a total saline water of 100 L/day. In addition, integrating a condenser to the modified solar still improved its productivity. So, the total yields of conventional and modified solar stills were 2500 and 5145mL/m2.day, respectively. Therefore, the distillate of modified solar still was improved by 105.8% as compared to that of the conventional solar still due to using the hot feed water and external condenser. Moreover, using phase change material enhanced the modified solar still yield. The total yield of conventional solar still and modified solar still with hot feed water, condenser, and phase change material was 2575 and 6150mL/m2.day, respectively. Consequently, the productivity of the modified solar still with hot feed water, condenser, and phase change material was improved by around 138.83% over that of the conventional solar still. Finally, the conventional solar still had an average efficiency of 31.5%. Also, when using the hot feed water and external condenser with the modified solar still, the thermal efficiency was reported as 49.7%. Also, the modified solar still with hot water, condenser, and phase change material had a thermal efficiency of 56.5%. Finally, the water costs of 1 L from the CSS and MSS are 0.063 $ and 0.050 $, respectively.

Solar tracker design on solar panel for stm32 microcontroller based on battery charging system

This paper describes about solar energy is one of the energy sources that won’t terminated. Solar energy can be easily converted into electrical energy by using solar panels. Solar panels that are placed horizontally on the ground, the solar panel cannot absorb the light perfectly. Therefore, solar panels require an automatic solar tracking system to increase the efficiency of the solar panels. In this study, a solar tracker has been designed using a light dependent resistor (ldr) sensor based on the stm32 microcontroller. From the results of the study, the increase in power obtained from the use of a solar tracker was 27.97%. In static solar panels, the time required to fully charge the 12v, 7ah lead acid battery is 5 hours 10 minutes, while using a solar tracker the lead acid battery charging time is 3 hours 30 minutes. The use of a solar tracker saves battery charging time for 1 hour 40 minutes compared to static solar panels.

Economics and Environment Assessment for Design and Implementation of An Automatic Solar Tracking System

Economics and Environment Assessment for Design and Implementation of An Automatic Solar Tracking System

Improved design of automatic solar tracking system based on integration of accelerometer, compass sensor, and GPS

Improved design of automatic solar tracking system based on integration of accelerometer, compass sensor, and GPS

Experimental Verification of the Modified PSA Algorithm

Being abundant and non-polluted, solar energy is an increasingly desirable energy source. Growing research is concerned about maximum solar energy acquisition from solar panels, especially in the automatic sun-tracking of the solar panels. This paper presents a modified algorithm based on the “PSA Algorithm” proposed in the 2001. And presents a new automatic solar tracking system with a two-axis is designed based on the algorithm. The PSA modified algorithm is used to calculate the sun’s horizontal azimuth and zenith angle combined with time, longitude, latitude, and other information. We designed a prototype mainly composed of a microcontroller, a Global Positioning System (GPS) module, a digital compass, a tilt sensor, a 555 timer, and gates, optical couples, an H-bridge and two stepper motors. Then using the proposed prototype, a series of experiments are conducted in Tianjin City. Measured zenith angle values were collected and recorded based on the PSA modified algorithm and the original PSA algorithm, compared with the actual Zenith Angle of the Sun in Tianjin City. The comparison curves of Zenith Angle show that the measurement accuracy of the modified PSA algorithm is higher than that of the PSA original algorithm.

Energy and economic evaluation of a middle-sized CSP parabolic field in an agro-industrial company

The energy assessment carried out in a middle-sized CSP parabolic field of 120 m2 is presented; it provides pre-heating water at 70°C to the boilers of the lemon essential oil extraction process in an agro-industrial company located in Piura, at the border of Sechura desert in Peru. The parabolic cylindrical solar concentrators are made with glass reflectors, an automatic solar tracking system, and collector tubes through which water flows. It was measured that each collector converts solar energy and transfer it as a thermal energy to the water with an average efficiency of 18.1%. Considering this result, theoretically the whole solar field could provide 550.37 GJ/year for water preheating, which is equivalent to saving 28151.8 liters of LPG, and 46.87 tons of CO2 released to the environment. However, after a year of operation, the solar field provided only 99.59 GJ for water preheating, saving 4 705.26 liters of LPG, equivalent to stop emitting 7.69 tons of CO2 to the environment. An overall thermal energy efficiency of the CSP solar field in 18.1% was estimated. According to the financial assessment with the actual annual data, the period of recovery of the investment is estimated to be 4.4 years, 3.6 more years than theoretical projection.

Rancang Bangun Panel Photovoltaic dengan Automatic Sun Tracking System (ASTS) Untuk Mengoptimalan Serapan Energi Matahari

Dewasa inipanel surya banyak digunakan sebagai pembangkit listrik mandiri, hal ini dapat kita lihat banyaknya pengaplikasian solar panel pada peralatan elektrik, seperti traffic light, penerangan umum dan lain-lain. Energi yang dihasilkan olehpanel surya dipengaruhi oleh sinar matahari yang diserap. umumnya solar panel diimplementasikan secara statis, ini menyebabkan daya serap energi matahari kurang maksimal pada pagi dan sore hari. Untuk memaksimalkan penyerapan sinar matahari, panel surya harus selalu menghadap tegak lurus terhadap posisi matahari. Sistem penjejak matahari otomatis diperlukan untuk mengatasi permasalahan tersebut, sistem penjejak matahari ini menjadikan solar panel selalu tegak lurus menghadap matahari dan dapat mengikuti pergerakan matahari, sehingga serapan energi matahari lebih maksimal. Hasil dari pengujian menunjukkan penggunaan sistem tracking otomatis dapat membuat solar panel menyerap energi matahari lebih maksimal yang ditunjukkan dengan tegangan lebih stabil, dan daya lebih besar dibandng dengan solar panel statis. Sistem pelacak matahari ini mampu meningkatkan daya rata-rata hingga ±39-41 watt/hari dengan efisiensi penggunaan ASTS 81,66 % pada panel PV kapasitas 50 WP.

Design and construction of a solar tracking system for Linear Fresnel Concentrator

An open circuit solar tracking system has been designed, manufactured, simulated and implemented for a handcrafted prototype of a small scale linear Fresnel reflector with a single axis of motion. The electronic control system is governed by an Arduino UNO R3 board and two main auxiliary systems; a Microstep Driver TB6600 and an RTC DS1302 module. Further, a mechanism was implemented that joins the reflectors to a stepper motor that executes a single movement per sequence, to move the set of reflector mirrors that make up the reflection system of the device. The positioning angles of the reflectors determined by the control algorithm models for solar tracking, allowed to feed the TONATIUH software to evaluate the path of the solar rays through the 3D modeling of the Linear Fresnel reflector on a real scale. The software was designed to follow the path of the sun by means of astronomical equations. In this way, the mirrors of the Linear Fresnel reflector can follow the solar path on a single axis from 7 am to 5 pm, making changes in the position of each element in 15-minute intervals. The percentage of position deviation of the reflectors does not exceed 1% between the location of the full-scale system mirrors and the position angles provided by the control algorithm. The efficiency of the implemented automatic solar tracking system increased by more than 50% compared to the manual tracking system.

Design and implementation of an intelligent single axis automatic solar tracking system

Abstract Sun-oriented solar power production with sunlight-based vitality plays an important role. In reality, untimely or innovative countries gracefully take a move forward. When oil is used for power era, it contributes to a rise in poisoning and greenhouse gases. This creates natural complications. Another human need for existence can be filled by using numerous sun- oriented developments in vitality, the planet can still prevent worldwide problems which can also serve to decrease pollution at the same time. In far-off areas where communities of citizens do not approach electricity photovoltaic frameworks are added many any administration offices have taken the amounts of action to allow creativity in sun-driven vitality to be used for power production. Single axis monitoring devices are discussed in this article. This analysis supports the findings. In comparison with the static systems, the single axis monitoring system is more accurate. In either scenario, a single axis monitoring system is simpler to accomplish in cost and adaptability viewpoints than a static one.

Energy Harvesting: Automatic Solar Tracker System

A microcontroller-based prototype of an automatic solar tracking system is proposed in this paper. Light-dependent resistors are used in this solar tracker. By using this system we can automatically rotate the solar panel according to the movement of the sun. The objective of this work is to always get the maximum intensity of sunlight. In this paper, A small prototype of the solar tracking system is described to implement the design. It has a low cost and great efficiency.

Microcontroller based Automatic Solar Tracking System

Microcontroller based Automatic Solar Tracking System

Design of Solar Power LED Lighting System using Horizontal Two-Axis Arduino Based Solar Tracking System

The project deals with design of solar power LED lighting system using Horizontal Two-Axis Arduino based Solar Tracking System. The main goal of this project is to design a very precise solar tracker. The project is divided into two parts; hardware and software. Hardware part generally composed of solar panel, two-DC motors with gearbox, LDR sensor module and electronic circuit. Software part represents the thinking behavior of the system, that is how the system acting under several weather conditions. In this work sensing of the sun position carried out in two stages primary and secondary. Primary stage or indirect sensing performed via sun-earth relationship as a 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 dusty, the tracking system uses primary stage or sun-earth geometrical relationships only to identify the location of the sun; so the system tracks the position of the sun regardless the weather condition. The energy extracted from photovoltaic (PV) or any solar collector depends on solar irradiance. For maximum extraction of energy from the sun, the solar collector panel should always be normal to the incident radiation Solar trackers moves the solar collector to follow the sun path and keeps the orientation of the solar collector at an optimal tilt angle. Solar tracking system improves substantially the energy efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) panel. In this paper, an automatic dual axis solar tracking system is designed and developed using Light Dependent Resistor (LDR) and DC motors on a mechanical structure with gear arrangement. Two axis solar tracking (azimuth angle as well as altitude angle) is implemented through Arduino UNO controller based on Sun Earth Geometry. The results indicated that the automatic solar tracking system is more reliable and efficient than fixed one.

A Robotic arm based automatic solar-tracking system

The automatic sun-chasing panel can effectively improve the utilization of solar energy by adjusting the robotic arm that keep a right angle towards the sunlight. The new tracking system searches the position of the sun by analyzing the video stream captured by the camera and then binarization and edge detection methods are adopted to prevent the interference of other light sources. In the contemporary world with the shortage of energy resource, automatic sun-chasing panels can effectively improve the utilization of solar energy, so that the photoelectric conversion rate stays at the peak at every moment, effectively alleviating the problem of energy shortage.

Investigation and Optimization of Power Based Smart Home Module Integrated with Automatic Solar Tracking System and MPPT Technique

Currently, the world has a lot of research and practical application of intelligent building systems integrated with intelligent power systems. Because Vietnam is a country with potential for solar energy, the integrator of solar energy is being strongly developed. However, the research result of the optimization of electrical energy used by the intelligent type solar integration is rare. This paper presents the design and structure of the module of intelligent control and monitoring via wireless network integrated with the automatic solar concentration system. The system allows easy connection and operation of all electrical power sources including the dispersal solar power to ensure the efficient and lower power consumption. In addition, the solar cell system is applied the Maximum Power Point Tracking technique (MPPT), which helps to stabilize and improve the power generation efficiency of the PV panels. The test results on the module showed absorption performance of automatic solar-cell flat plate systems is raised by 20-30% and power consumption in small households reduced approximately 30%.

Development of Automatic Solar Tracking System for Small Solar Energy System

The main purpose of this paper is to present a novel idea that is based on design and development of an automatic solar tracker system that tracks the Sun's energy for maximum energy output achievement. In this paper, a novel automatic solar tracking system has been developed for small-scale solar energy system. The hardware part and programming part have been concurrently developed in order for the solar tracking system to be possible for it to operate accurately. Arduino Uno R3, Sensor Shield V4 Digital Analog Module, LDR (Light Dependent Resistor), MPU-6050 6DOF 3 Axis Gyroscope has been used for tracking the angular sun movement as shown in Fig. 1. Accelerometer, High-Efficiency Solar Panel, and Tower Pro MG90S Servo Motor have been used for the hardware part. High-level programming language has been embedded in the hardware to operate the tracking system effectively. The tracking system has shown significant improvement of energy delivery to solar panel comparing to the conventional method. All the results will be shown in the full paper. There are three contributions the research presented in this paper which are, i.e. perfect tracking system, the comparison between the static and tracking system and the development of Gyroscope angular movement system which tracks the angular movement of the sun along with another tracking system.

Investigation of Street Lamp With Automatic Solar Tracking System

A street lamp with automatic solar tracking system can control the adjusting mechanism of azimuth and altitude so that the solar panel may adapt itself to the sunlight to improve the photoelectric conversion efficiency. In this work, we demonstrated the design of the adjusting mechanism of azimuth and altitude and verified the wind resistance. The method was realized by capturing the incident direction of sunlight using the photodiode array. The signal of the photodiode array can be processed by LM339N and then was sent to the single chip, which can deal with the signal to the motor of the adjusting mechanism of azimuth and the linear actuator of the adjusting mechanism of altitude, respectively. The hall sensors, embedded in the adjusting mechanism, are utilized to fulfill the feedback of the motion position to the single chip. These results clearly reveal the potential of the system in application.

Hydrogen-Rich Syngas from Jatropha curcas Shell Biomass Char in Fresnel Lens Solar Concentrator Assembly

Hydrogen-rich syngas was generated from Jatropha curcas (J. curcas) shell biomass char in a Fresnel lens solar concentrator assembly using solar thermal energy. The assembly had two lenses arranged in such a manner that the focal point of both coincided at a glass reactor, having a specially designed water inlet mechanism. A dual axis automatic solar tracking system working in a closed loop was utilized for continuously maintaining the focal point on the reactor so that the desired high temperature could be obtained for the reaction. The maximum temperature of 1087 °C with a geometrical concentration of 215× was reached at the focal plane. The theoretical efficiency of the system was found to be 67.44%. The simulated results of the predicted temperature were first verified experimentally without any reaction mixture, and they differed with an average error of 7.85%. J. curcas shell char was then steam gasified at the focus. A maximum char bed temperature of 736 °C could be achieved during the reaction, an...

Design of one axis three position solar tracking system for paraboloidal dish solar collector

Solar Tracking System plays a vital role in the maximum generation of solar energy. However, the design of the sun tracker which was currently in use is very complicated and expensive. Those sun tracker units are heavy and seems to be difficult to install and prone to breakdown. This project aims to design an automatic Solar Tracking system which overcomes the above mentioned problems. In this process one axis three position solar tracking system was developed, to reduce the complexity and to shut down the cost and the same has been tested. Taking into consideration, the high efficiency with the lower cost, Light Dependent Resistor (LDR) sensors have been used in this project to track the sunlight position. Two LDR sensors one facing East and other facing West senses the intensity of sunlight and the result will be compared. The difference in the intensity will be calculated by the Programmable Interface Controller (PIC controller) which was fixed below the paraboloidal dish solar collector. If there is any difference in values, the controller sent the signal to the DC geared motor that passes through the amplifier which amplifies the signal according to that of DC geared motor. At once the motor receives the signal it tilts the solar collector. The above process will continue till the intensity of sunlight received by both the sensors is same. In this way, paraboloidal dish solar collector collects the maximum sunlight which will be converging to a black receiver for the maximum heat production. The test result shows that, the one axis three position tracking device is able to track and follow the Sunlight intensity in order to get maximum solar energy in the form of heat irrespective of the motor speed.