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I. INTRODUCTION
nergy is the prime factor for the development of a nation.
An enormous amount of energy is extracted, distributed,
converted and consumed in the global society daily. 85% of
energy production is dependent on fossil fuels. The resources
of the fossil fuels are limited and their use results in global
warming due to emission of greenhouse gases. To provide a
sustainable power production and safe world to the future
generation, there is a growing demand for energy from
renewable sources like solar, wind, geothermal and ocean
tidal wave.
The sun is the prime source of energy, directly or indirectly,
which is also the fuel for most renewable systems. Among all
renewable systems, photovoltaic system is the one which has
a great chance to replace the conventional energy resources
[1].
But, there are still some problems, such as high system cost
and low efficiency of the PV system. Furthermore, the actual
power is influenced by light intensity, air temperature and
other environmental factors [2].
Increasing the cell efficiency, maximizing the power output
and employing a tracking system with solar panel are three
ways to increase the overall efficiency of the solar panel.
Improvement of solar cell efficiency is an ongoing research
work and people throughout the world are actively doing
research on this. Maximizing the output power from solar
panel and integrating solar tracking system are the two ways
where electronic design methodology can bring success [1].
Considering solar trackers available solar trackers in the
market are much costly to integrate with solar panel system
[1]. In the developing countries cost is one of the major
issues. Solar power systems in autonomous robotic vehicles
have been often used for some years [6].
Microprocessor based automatic sun tracker has
been developed in 1991
.The proposed tracking system
resulted in a considerable saving in energy. Tracking system
is not constrained by the geographical location of installation
of the solar panel. The temporal changes in environment
condition at a distance where panel is mounted do not affect
proper direction finding. But in this method the relative
change in the elevation angle of sun has been neglected and
but adjustments of the tilt angle is necessary every month
[11].
Then microcontrollers were introduced in solar
tracking with a paper presenting a means of tracking the
suns position with the help of microcontroller. Specially, it
demonstrates a working software solution for maximizing
solar cell output by positioning a solar panel at the point of
maximum light intensity. The prototype represents a method
for tracking the sun both in normal and bad weather
condition. But this is only a miniature system and it has
limitations in hardware areas like photo resistors used and the
panel rotated [1].
III. METHODOLOGY
A. Block Diagram
The block diagram of the proposed solar tracking system
model is shown in figure. The intensity of sunlight is detected
using LDRs. The LDRs are fixed in both axes of the solar
panel. The difference in intensity in sunlight is obtained from
the LDR output which is then given to the microcontroller.
The microcontroller produces an output corresponding to the
direction in which maximum intensity is obtained. This
output is provided to a driver IC which turns ON the gear
motors. The gear motor rotates the solar panel to the direction
where maximum intensity of sunlight is obtained. The power
obtained from the solar panel is given to a battery for storage
purpose. The power that is stored in this battery is then
provided as the supply power for the electric vehicle. The
power obtained from the solar panel is given to a battery for
storage purpose. The power that is stored in this battery is
then provided as the supply power for the electric vehicle.
B. Circuit Diagram
The circuit diagram of the proposed model is shown in
figure. Three LDRs are fixed for the control of a single axis.
Here to obtain the control on both axes we use six LDRs. The
LDR produces a change in resistance according to the change
in the intensity of sunlight obtained. This change in
resistance is converted to a corresponding voltage output by
using a voltage divider circuit.
Three LDRs are consequently placed in a single line inside
a slit on an axis. The system is stable and needs no change if
the intensity of sunlight is maximum in the LDR that is
placed in the middle. If the intensity of sunlight is maximum
in an LDR in any edge then the panel has to be rotated in that
direction. For this the change in resistance that is converted
to a voltage is provided as input to a microcontroller. The
microcontroller then decides the motor to be turned ON and
provides the trigger to turn ON that motor through a driver
IC.A single gear motor controls the movement in a particular
axis. Here we use two gear motors for the overall control. The
H-bridge provided in the driver IC can make a gear motor
rotate in both directions.
C. Program Logic
The logic of the program used in the microcontroller is
explained here. When the intensity of sunlight is maximum in
the LDR placed in the middle then the system is stable and
there is no need for tracking. Initially both the motors are
considerd to be OFF. The output of the LDRs placed in X-axis
is taken in an order as xa0,xa1 & xa2.The value of xa0 is
taken as x1value1 which is again observed after a delay as
x1value2.If there is a drastic change between x1value1 and
x1value2 then the no tracking is done since this change might
be due to an immediate turning of the vehicle or any
unfavorable condition. When this change is small the values
of other two LDRs are also measured. When the value of the
LDR in the middle is greatest i.e., if xa1 is greater than xa0
and xa2 then no change is caused to the system. But if xa2 is
greater motor1 is rotated in clockwise direction towards the
direction of that LDR. And if xa0 is greater motor1 is rotated
in clockwise direction towards the direction of that LDR. The
clockwise rotation of motor1 is indicated as motor11 and the
anticlockwise rotation of motor1 is indicated as motor12.
The same logic is taken in the control of Y-axis. The flow
char t for the logic used in X-axis is shown in fig.6 and that
of Y-axis is shown in fig.7
D. Hardware Description
The sunlight is received by the solar panel. A green
LED indicates that a power is obtained from the solar panel.
The LDRs placed inside the slit on the panel detects the
intensity of sunlight. In horizontal axis the LDRs xo, x1 and
x3 detects the sunlight. In the vertical axis the LDRs yo, y1
and y3 senses the sunlight intensity. The difference in
resistance generated in the LDR with the change in sunlight
intensity is converted to a corresponding output voltage by a
voltage divider circuit. If the intensity of sunlight is
maximum in x1 and y1 both the motors 1 and 2 remains off.
If intensity of sunlight is maximum in x0, motor 1
rotates in clockwise direction. If intensity of sunlight is more
in x2, motor1 rotates in anticlockwise direction.
Similarly in the vertical axis motor2 rotates in
clockwise direction if the intensity of sunlight is maximum in
y0 and in anticlockwise direction if the intensity of sunlight is
maximum in y2.
The output voltage from the panel is stored in a
battery which is used as a power source for the electric
vehicle. Another battery is used to provide the power for the
components used in the tracking system.
E. Observational Results
Analyzed the results of the system model by obtaining the
waveforms of the voltage output from each component of the
system. The output of the solar panel is a steady dc voltage of
about 7.93V (Rated output of the panel is 8.86V).
REFERENCES
[1] Md. Tanvir Arafat Khan, S.M. Shahrear Tanzil, Rifat Rahman, S M Shafiul
[18] Fan Zhang, Kary Thanapalan, Andrew Procter, Stephen Carr, and Jon
MaddyAdaptive Hybrid Maximum Power Point Tracking Method for a
Photovoltaic System.