Introduction
This was the final year project for my engineering course at Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal. The solar tracking works on the principal of astronomical equations which calculates the coordinates of the sun by calculating the elevation and azimuth angle given the latitude, longitude and time zone of a given place.The use of a tracking system greatly improves the power gain from solar
radiation.The amount of current a PV panel produces has a direct correlation with
the intensity of light the panel is absorbing. Below is a simple drawing of the
system:
How it works ?
The software uses complex mathematical astronomical equations to determine the position of the sun very accurately. The inputs required by the software includes the Latitudes, Longitudes and time zone of the location by the user. Other inputs like date, hour, minutes and seconds are taken by the LabVIEW program from the computer system itself thus minimizing the hassle of inputting all the data. The software system
calculates the azimuth and elevation angle which is fed to the Arduino board
wirelessly via XBee chip. This Arduino board generates a PWM signal
proportional to the angle it gets from the software and this is fed to the
servo motors which in turn rotate the pan tilt structure on which panel is
mounted.
The project is divided into two modules: software module and hardware module. Both this modules have to
work in synchronism in order to achieve solar tracking.
One of the unique feature of the project lies in the 'Sun Trajectory Tab' .This tab provides the information of the sun trajectory with the help of both 2D and 3D graphs along with the current position of the sun. The 2D graph is plotted ‘Elevation Angle’ vs ‘Azimuth Angle’ and the 3D graph gives a more comprehensive outlook to the trajectory of the sun with the directions marked. The trajectory of the sun for both 2D and 3D graph is plotted by simulating the algorithm from sunrise to sunset thus plotting points for each second of the day.
One of the unique feature of the project lies in the 'Sun Trajectory Tab' .This tab provides the information of the sun trajectory with the help of both 2D and 3D graphs along with the current position of the sun. The 2D graph is plotted ‘Elevation Angle’ vs ‘Azimuth Angle’ and the 3D graph gives a more comprehensive outlook to the trajectory of the sun with the directions marked. The trajectory of the sun for both 2D and 3D graph is plotted by simulating the algorithm from sunrise to sunset thus plotting points for each second of the day.
The hardware module comprises of the following components: mechanical
components, HS-311 servo motors, Arduino Board, XBee shield, XBee and 1W solar
panel. The hardware module is responsible to hold the solar panel and aligned
it to the sun to obtain the maximum efficiency from the solar panel while
wirelessly communicating with the software module.
