SOLAR TRACKING DEVICE

INTRODUCTION
The efficiency of the photovoltaic (PV) system depends on the climate
conditions of solar radiation, ambient temperature and wind speed, matching
of the system with the load and appropriate placement of the solar panels. A
majority of solar panels in use today are stationary and therefore do not
consistently output the maximum amount of power that they can actually
produce. A solar tracker will track the sun throughout the day and adjust the
angle of the solar panel to make the sun normal to the solar panels at all
times. The orientation of the solar panel may increase the efficiency of the
conversion system from 20% up to 50%.More energy is collected by
controlling the solar panel to follow the sun like a sunflower.The simulation is
realized on matlab/simulink platform.

DESIGN OF SOLAR TRACKING SYSTEM

The main componenets in solar tracking device are LDRs PI cotroller servo
motor and drive.The solar tracker system requires movement in different
directions, and uses electric motors as prime mover, based on this; solar
tracker system motion control is simplified to
an electric motor motion control
The LDR sensors (NORPS-12) were used to sense the sun irradiance. LDR
sensors are
resistors that would vary their resistance according to the sunlight intensity
exposed onto its surface.Higher the irradiance lesser the resistance of the
LDR. The LDR sensor circuitry is designed as a voltage divider circuit as
shown below
The servo motor is nothing but a pmdc motor with position
control.Physically,position control is acheived by two potentiometers,in one of
the potentiometer the reference angle is set and the motor rotates till it
matches that angle i.e till the potential at both the pots are the same.Servo
motor is realized in matlab by comparing theta with reference theta
TESTING AND RESULTS