Design of Solar Power LED Lighting System using Horizontal Two-Axis Arduino Based Solar Tracking System
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The project deals with design of solar power LED lighting system using Horizontal Two-Axis Arduino based Solar Tracking System. The main goal of this project is to design a very precise solar tracker. The project is divided into two parts; hardware and software. Hardware part generally composed of solar panel, two-DC motors with gearbox, LDR sensor module and electronic circuit. Software part represents the thinking behavior of the system, that is how the system acting under several weather conditions. In this work sensing of the sun position carried out in two stages primary and secondary. Primary stage or indirect sensing performed via sun-earth relationship as a coarse adjustment and second stage or direct sensing performed via set of LDR sensors as output tuning to trims the azimuth and altitude angles. If the weather is cloudy or dusty, the tracking system uses primary stage or sun-earth geometrical relationships only to identify the location of the sun; so the system tracks the position of the sun regardless the weather condition. The energy extracted from photovoltaic (PV) or any solar collector depends on solar irradiance. For maximum extraction of energy from the sun, the solar collector panel should always be normal to the incident radiation Solar trackers moves the solar collector to follow the sun path and keeps the orientation of the solar collector at an optimal tilt angle. Solar tracking system improves substantially the energy efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) panel. In this paper, an automatic dual axis solar tracking system is designed and developed using Light Dependent Resistor (LDR) and DC motors on a mechanical structure with gear arrangement. Two axis solar tracking (azimuth angle as well as altitude angle) is implemented through Arduino UNO controller based on Sun Earth Geometry. The results indicated that the automatic solar tracking system is more reliable and efficient than fixed one.
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Design of Solar Power LED Lighting System using Horizontal Two-Axis Arduino Based Solar Tracking System
- 1. Design of Solar Power LED Lighting System using Horizontal Two-Axis Arduino Based Solar Tracking System P.Suresh1 , S.Manojkumar2 , E.Rakesh3 , N.Saranraj4 1 Assistant Professor, St. Joseph College of Engineering 234 UG Scholar, St. Joseph College of Engineering 1 suresh@stjoseph.ac.in Abstract The project deals with design of solar power LED lighting system using Horizontal Two-Axis Arduino based Solar Tracking System. The main goal of this project is to design a very precise solar tracker. The project is divided into two parts; hardware and software. Hardware part generally composed of solar panel, two-DC motors with gearbox, LDR sensor module and electronic circuit. Software part represents the thinking behavior of the system, that is how the system acting under several weather conditions. In this work sensing of the sun position carried out in two stages primary and secondary. Primary stage or indirect sensing performed via sun-earth relationship as a coarse adjustment and second stage or direct sensing performed via set of LDR sensors as output tuning to trims the azimuth and altitude angles. If the weather is cloudy or dusty, the tracking system uses primary stage or sun-earth geometrical relationships only to identify the location of the sun; so the system tracks the position of the sun regardless the weather condition. The energy extracted from photovoltaic (PV) or any solar collector depends on solar irradiance. For maximum extraction of energy from the sun, the solar collector panel should always be normal to the incident radiation Solar trackers moves the solar collector to follow the sun path and keeps the orientation of the solar collector at an optimal tilt angle. Solar tracking system improves substantially the energy efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) panel. In this paper, an automatic dual axis solar tracking system is designed and developed using Light Dependent Resistor (LDR) and DC motors on a mechanical structure with gear arrangement. Two axis solar tracking (azimuth angle as well as altitude angle) is implemented through Arduino UNO controller based on Sun Earth Geometry. The results indicated that the automatic solar tracking system is more reliable and efficient than fixed one. Keywords: Arduino UNO Controller, Light Dependent Resistor, Photo-Voltaic, Solar Tracking System 1. Introduction Nowadays, the climate change on the world is at a delicate level. Climate change can be divided into two classes, human and natural causes. Natural causes of climate changes are ocean current, solar variations and earth orbital changes. The major part of climate changes caused by human is man-made greenhouse gases emission. Global warning can be shown through some of the natural phenomenon around the globe like the severe weather conditions. Solar energy is the energy derived from the sun in the form of solar irradiation. Solar energy is the most inexhaustible, renewable source of energy known to humanity. In order to increase the efficiency of solar energy systems, solar tracker is added at the expense of system's complexity and cost. The two basic categories of trackers are single axis and dual axis. Single axis tracker has one axis of freedom, vertical or horizontal. Dual axis tracker has both a vertical and a horizontal axis of freedom, so it able to track the position of the sun precisely. A prototype of the automatic two-axis solar tracking system with a new design of sun-position tracker mechanism and wireless supervisory is designed in this paper. The solar tracker mechanism is composed of International Journal of Scientific Research and Review Volume 8, Issue 3, 2019 ISSN NO: 2279-543X Page No: 1149
- 2. Arduino UNO controller, DC motors, gear box, LDR sensor module, angle sensor, timing circuit, Bluetooth module and motor driving circuit. Arduino UNO sends command to DC motors to specify elevation and azimuth angles of solar panel in which to maintain the panel always normal to sun light. Two angle sensors are used to measure the physical angles on both outlet shafts of azimuth and elevation to make sure the desired angles are reached. Set of four LDR light sensor are used to trim the errors of altitude and azimuth angles. The parameters of the tracking system are monitored remotely on the supervisor and control computer program through Bluetooth module. As a result of experiments the power generated by the proposed tracking system is increased in the overall of about 1 0% ~ 40% more than fixed angle system in general. The system of the paper is as follows: Section II deals with system description. Section III provides the design of various components in solar power tracking system. Section IV shows Hardware results and discussion. 2. System Description The system configuration of the proposed method are presented here. Figure 1 shows the proposed model of solar tracking system. Figure 1. Block Diagram of Proposed Horizontal Two-Axis Arduino Based Solar Tracking System For tracking position of the sun rapidly, the supervisory and control program should firstly calculate the theoretical altitude angle and azimuth angle as coarse adjustment of the automatic tracking mechanism through following equations (1) International Journal of Scientific Research and Review Volume 8, Issue 3, 2019 ISSN NO: 2279-543X Page No: 1150
- 3. (2) (3) The theoretical value of altitude angle and azimuth angle were translated into command string for driving DC motors rotate to the corresponding position. Then, the system automatically trimming the altitude and azimuth angle of the PV panel according to feedback signal of the proposed sunlight sensor module. The sunlight sensor module is consist of eight photo-sensors, glass filters and opaque partitions. Azimuth and Altitude angle of the Sun is illustrated in Figure 2. Daily variation of altitude angle and azimuth angle is shown in Figure 3 and 4 respectively. Flow Chart 1: Dual Axis Mechanism of Solar Tracking System Figure 2. Illustration of Azimuth and Altitude angle of the Sun International Journal of Scientific Research and Review Volume 8, Issue 3, 2019 ISSN NO: 2279-543X Page No: 1151
- 4. Figure 3. Daily variation of altitude angle Figure 4. Daily variation of azimuth angle 3. Design of Various Components used in Solar Power Tracking System This section describes the designing and modelling of various components used in solar power tracking system and parameter calculation 3.1. Solar Panel Solar panel cells are really semiconductors that are made using photovoltaic materials. Photovoltaic (PV) is the technical terminology that is related to the solar energy and the conversion of the suns ultra-violet rays into electrical energy. They do not have fluids or chemicals in them and they do not have any moving parts. Solar panel cells simply convert the sunlight they receive into stored energy with the help of an inverter. You can take a portable solar panel with you when you travel to places that will not have electricity and use them to operate your electrical devices such as your lap top, cell phone International Journal of Scientific Research and Review Volume 8, Issue 3, 2019 ISSN NO: 2279-543X Page No: 1152
- 5. or appliances in a camper van or trailer. Some people take them out on their boats to supply the electricity they may need out on the water. 3.1.1. Approx. Solar Output for 6 Hours a Day Sunlight 1 x 80 watt panel = 30 Amps 2 x 80 watt panels = 60 Amps 3 x 80 watt panels = 90 Amps A system that requires 90 amps per day would require 3 x 80 watt panels and batteries equivalent to 300 amp hours for continuous power supply. Your system will perform much better in summer than what it will in winter due to the longer days and stronger sun. Keep in mind that batteries are rated in amp hours at 25ºc. This means that temperature will affect the level of output that you will receive from your batteries. When the temperature is colder than 25ºc you will receive less output from your batteries, and in reverse, when temperature is above 25ºc you will receive a higher output from your batteries.1 Amp at 12 Volts = 12 watts, 1 Amp at 240 Volts = 240 watts, Amps x Volts = Watts EG 10Amps x 12 Volts = 120 watts, Watts / Volts = Amps EG 120 watts / 12 Volts = 10 Amps. 3.2. Arduino UNO Arduino/Genuine Uno is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega328P. It has 14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, a 16 MHz quartz crystal, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header and a reset button. It contains everything needed to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to a computer with a USB cable or power it with an AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started. You can tinker with your UNO without worrying too much about doing something wrong, worst case scenario you can replace the chip for a few dollars and start over again. Figure 5. Arduino board with UNO Controller 3.3. Boost converter This XL6009 DC-DC boost/step-up converter module (HCMODU0091) is based on the XLSemi XL6009 DC-DC converter and is capable of boosting a wide range of input voltages up to a maximum of 45V. It output can supply up to 2.5A out current (dependent on input voltage and operating environment) and has built in thermal limiting protection circuitry. An on-board multi-turn potentiometer allows for adjustment of the output voltage which can set anywhere from Vin up to its maximum output voltage. The International Journal of Scientific Research and Review Volume 8, Issue 3, 2019 ISSN NO: 2279-543X Page No: 1153
- 6. module is ideal for boosting battery, USB, car lighter, or solar cell voltages and has large pads for soldering wires to its input and output terminals. Figure 6. Boost converter board Table 1. Boost converter Specifications S.No Specifications Output 1 Input Voltage 5 to 32V DC 2 Output Voltage Vin to 45V DC 3 Max output current 2.5A 4 Operating temperature 0 to 70oC 5 Efficiency Up to 94% 3.4. LDR sensor The LDR Sensor Module is used to detect the presence of light / measuring the intensity of light. The output of the module goes high in the presence of light and it becomes low in the absence of light. The sensitivity of the signal detection can be adjusted using potentiometer. Fig 7. LDR sensor 4. System Realization and Experimentation Dual-axis’’ means that the automatic system can be able to tracking sun follow two axes simultaneously, Left-Right (azimuth angle) and Up-Down (altitude angle) direction. The mechanism was consist of aluminum frame and steel pedestal as shown in Figure 8. The azimuth and altitude angle adjusting mechanism was made up of the DC motor, International Journal of Scientific Research and Review Volume 8, Issue 3, 2019 ISSN NO: 2279-543X Page No: 1154
- 7. worm-gear, rotating encoder, limit switches and shaft coupling as demonstrated in Figure 8. Complete set up of Horizontal Two-Axis Arduino Based Solar Tracking System. Fig 8. The proposed prototype of the automatic dual-axis solar tracking mechanism with Azimuth angle adjusting mechanism and Altitude angle adjusting mechanism. 5. Conclusion A dual-axis automatic solar tracking system and its supervisory and control system was proposed and implemented in this paper. It is low-cost, reliable and efficient. According to the experimental result, the proposed automatic solar tracking system has an overall energy increase of about 17%~25% more than the fix-angle PV system in sunny days, and about 8%~11% in cloudy days. Then, a supervisory and control system was developed to pre-calculate the theoretical altitude angle and azimuth angle of the sun as coarse adjustment command for automatic mechanism, and storage all electrical and mechanical parameters into database. References 1. Ramya, G., V. Ganapathy, and P. Suresh. "Power Quality Improvement Using Multi-Level Inverter Based DVR and DSTATCOM Using Neuro-Fuzzy Controller." International Journal of Power Electronics and Drive Systems 8, no. 1 (2017): 316. 2. Suresh, P. and Baskaran, B., 2017. Voltage sag compensation in multiline distribution system using closed loop controlled IDVR. International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, 12(8), pp.1576-83. 3. Suresh, P. and Baskaran, B., 2016. Reduction of Line Losses by using Interline Dynamic Voltage Restorer. International Journal of Control Theory and Apllication, 9(25), pp.417-422. 4. Ramya, G. and Ganapathy, V., 2016. Comparison of Five Level and Seven Level Inverter Based Static Compensator System. Indonesian Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 3(3), pp.706-713. 5. Al-Soud, M.S., Abdallah, E., Akayleh, A., Abdallah, S. and Hrayshat, E.S., 2010. A parabolic solar cooker with automatic two axes sun tracking system. Applied Energy, 87(2), pp.463-470. 6. Abdallah, S. and Nijmeh, S., 2004. Two axes sun tracking system with PLC control. Energy conversion and management, 45(11-12), pp.1931-1939. International Journal of Scientific Research and Review Volume 8, Issue 3, 2019 ISSN NO: 2279-543X Page No: 1155