Design and fabrication of microcontroller-based solar tracker prototype with fixed geodesic dome brightness sensor and dual-axis pointing system

Date

12-2015

Degree

Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering

Major Course

Major in Electronics Engineering

College

College of Engineering and Agro-Industrial Technology (CEAT)

Adviser/Committee Chair

Adrian Augusto M. Sumalde

Abstract

Brought about by the increasing demand of power generation through renewable energy, solar panels have been widely used throughout the world. For more adequate results, the solar panels are recommended to have a solar tracking system so that the harvested solar energy could be maximized. This study yields a solar tracker prototype that has two major parts: (1) geodesic dome-like brightness sensor and (2) pointing system controlled by an Arduino Mega 2560 microcontroller. The brightness sensor was built using 10 inverted pyramids with measurements of 0.16 steradians each, with a Vishay CNY70 optical sensor in the center of each inverted pyramid to constantly check the sun location every six minutes. The pointing system was composed of two Tower Pro SG-90 servomotors that correspond to the translated x and y-component of the coordinates. An Arduino Mega 2560 microcontroller takes each of its 10 voltage inputs from the outputs of the CNY70 optical sensors and indentifies the signal of the highest voltage inout. The corresponding pulse-width modulation signal of the highest voltage input is sent by the microcontroller to the servomotors. After testing the system on regular time intervals on a daily basis, design was found reliable, while still having room for future development and optimization.

Language

English

Location

UPLB College of Engineering and Agro-Industrial Technology (CEAT)

Call Number

LG 993.5 2015 E64 /J38

Document Type

Thesis

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