SOLAR TRACKING SYSTEMUNIVERSITY OF GLAMORGAN

FACULTY OF ADVANCE TECHNOLOGY

2011-2012

Presented by Syed H Raza (08011605)

PROJECT SUPERVISOR

BEN MEHENNI

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Implementation of Solar Tracker system

Group Project

PROJECT STATEMENT

To design and implement an automated, double-axis solar-tracking mechanism using embedded system design in order to optimize the efficiency of overall solar energy

output

Project Objective

• To design a sensor array to provide directional information to guide a key drive system to follow the movement of the sun

across the sky. • The sensors have to be in the position to get best angle of

exposure to sunlight to get the solar energy• Dual axis moment will be made to make the tracker more

accurate and powerful and efficient. • To complete the project before the end of the course to be made an example for the upcoming student of the university

and in university open days.

Requirements

• To design a dual axis solar tracker• Stepper motor used to rotate the solar panel • Motors are controlled by the M16c microcontroller• Light dependant resistor used to detect the sun

light

Physical Design

Solar panel mounted on the pan tilt, LDRS connected on each side of the

panel

Two synchronous motors for the motion of the solar panel

connected to the microcontroller

Hardware Design

•To start with the hardware design first of all we tried to make a system with two step motors but it was quite excessive, we chose to buy a pan tilt module for CCTV camera systems and modify it to fit our application.

•Then we design the bracket to mount the solar panel on the pan tilt , the design was made with the help of auto CAD software.

•For the project we don’t have any big schematic as we need just four LDRS connected with 10 k resistor in series all separately so we it was very simple and straight forward.

•The pan tilt we bought got a control box with it to control the movement which we disconnect and connect it to the microcontroller to rotate the motors according to the intensity of the light on the LDRS.

Control box to change the direction of the pan tilt but we need the panel to by control by the M16c microcontroller so we connect

the control box with the M16c

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Frame mounted on the panel that we design with the help of the auto CAD and built it in

university workshop

Light dependant resistor connected in series with the 10k resistor with 3 output, one for ground, Vcc and

Encoder to connect it to the microcontroller

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Software implementation• To develop the software for the M16c was the

most difficult task in this project as we were not that familiar to the coding of the M16c but with lots of research and tutor help we manage to complete it

• The software used to write the code named HEW(high performance embedded workshop)

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Screenshot taken from the code while complete code has been submitted in assignment 2

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• As the LDR will pass the light intensity to M16c in the form of signal so we have used ADC(Analog to digital conversion) register to make it understandable to the microcontroller

Microcontroller connection with LDR’S and Motors

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Future Improvements

• The improvement can by made by connected the GPS to solar panel that will show the direction in attitude and latitude ion the LCD screen with the help of microcontroller

Conclusion• A solar tracker is designed employing the new principle of

using small solar cells to function as self-adjusting light sensors, providing a variable indication of their relative angle to the sun by detecting their voltage output. It has been proven through research that solar tracking system with single-axis freedom can increase energy output by approximately 20%, whereas the tracking system with

double axis freedom can increase the output by more than 40%. Therefore this work was to develop and implement a

solar tracking system with both degree of freedom and which detected the sunlight using sensors.

Any Question ??