AUTOMATIC SOLAR TRACKING SYSTEM FOR POWER GENERATION USING MICROCONTROLLER AND SENSOR

1S.SIVASAKTHIM.E.,Department of Electronics & communication Engineering, TRP Engineering College,Irungalur,Trichy-621105

Tamilnadu, India

2E.VINODHA3T.VASANTHA KUMARI

4D.VINITHA5P.BALAKAVI

UG ScholarB.E., (E.C.E)TRP Engineering College (SRM GROUP),Tiruchirappalli – 621 105, India

Email id-vinodha12elango@gmail.com

Abstract

This paper deals with a microcontroller based solar panel tracking system. By tracking the solar, more and more energy is to be generated as the panel is always perpendicular to the Sun's intensity. Renewable energy is rapidly gaining importance as an energy resource as fossil fuel prices fluctuate. The solar tracker will tend to maximize the amount of power absorbed by Photo Voltaic systems. Development of solar panel tracking system has been ongoing for several years. Now the wheel which is fixed at the base will move the panel from the shaded region to solar illuminated region, by using a sensor to detect high intensity radiation from the sun. It is advantageous to have the solar tracking system tracks the location of the high light intensity region, such that it generates more energy by absorbing the rays which is radiated from the sun. The objective is to design and implement an automatic solar tracking mechanism using embedded system design with minimum cost and reliable structure.Keywords— Solar Tracking System, Solar panel, Microcontroller AT89C51, LDR Sensor, DC Gear motor.

I.INTRODUTION

Solar energy is radiant light and heat from the Sun harnessed using a range of ever-evolving technologies such as solar heating, photovoltaic’s, solar thermal energy, solar architectureand artificial photosynthesis. It is an important source of renewable energy and its technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on the way they capture and distribute solar energy or convert it into solar powerThesystem willtendtomaximize theamountofpowerabsorbedby PhotoVoltaic systems.Ithas been estimatedthat theuseof

atrackingsystem,overafixedsystem, canincrease the poweroutputby40%- 70%. Designrequirementsare:i).duringthe timethatthesunisup,thesystemmustfollow thesun‘s positioninthesky.ii)Itshouldbetotally automaticand simpletooperate[9].Shading will have an adverse effect on all the solar technologies discussed here and should be avoided PV panel performance is exceptionally susceptible to shading. When shade falls on a PV panel, that portion of the panel is no longer able to collect the high-energy beam radiation from the sun. If that shading happens during the peak hours of operation (10 a.m. – 2 p.m.), the production of the panel can be greatly reduced. It is possible to align the tracking heliostat normal to sun using electronic control by a micro controller.

The block diagram of the system is shown in Fig.1

II. W O R K I N G PRINCIPLEANDMETHODOLOGY

The Sun tracking solar panel consists of four LDRs, solar panel and gear motor and ATMEL Micro controller. Four light dependent resistors are arranged on the edges of the terrace. Light dependent resistors produce low resistance when light falls on them. The gear motor connected to the panel rotates the panel in the direction of Sun. Panel is arranged in such a way that light on four LDRs is compared and panel is rotated towards LDR which have high intensity i.e. low resistance compared to other. Gear motor moves the panel towards the LDR.

When the intensity of the light falling on right LDR is more, panel slowly moves towards right and if intensity on the left LDR is more, panel slowly moves towards left. In the noon time, Sun is ahead and intensity of light on both the panels is same. In such cases, panel is constant and there is no rotation.TheLDRcombinationplays thevitalrole.Actuallythesecombinationsofsignalsare fedtothemicrocontroller 8051andthisdirectsthemotor associated to it. The required bit pattern is shown in TABLEI.

LDR1 LDR2 LDR3 LDR41 1 0 00 1 1 00 0 1 11 0 0 1

When thesteppermotorgetsthelastbitsequence ofthe table,thesteppermotorwillmovetoits initial position againfollow thesestepsagain,asthesuntraversefrom the beginninginnextday.

III. COMPONENTS USED

The majorcomponentsofthissystemareasfollows.

1. Microcontroller8051(Atmel89C51used)2. Encoder & Decoder3. LDRs

4. Motordriver L293D5. Gear motor

Other auxillary components are:

1. Resistor(10KΩ.1KΩ.)2. Capacitor(10µF,33pF)3. Crystaloscillator(11.0592MHz)4. 5Vand12Vpowersupply

Except these componentsthe connecting wire, circuit boardotherdevices areused AUSBbased flash magic

programmerisusedto‗burn‘thechip(toloadthe program inthechip).APCwithsoftware,compiler Keil C51simulatorisused.

IV. DETAILEDDESCRIPTION OFTHE SYSTEM

Thecompletecircuitry ofthisprojectmainlycanbe showninsections.Theseare:

Thesensorpart:

Light Dependent Resistors are the resistors whose resistance values depend on intensity of the light. As the intensity of light falling on the LDR increases, resistance value decreases. In dark, LDR will have maximum resistance. LDRs are connected to port0 in which they convert the analog signal to digital.

Encoder and transmitter:

Encoders are designed for creation of accurate and fast feedback according to the coordinate for all the electric motor types. This will combine the signals and give as single output which is given to RF transmitter.

Decoder and receiver: The received signal in the RF receiver is given to the decoder. A decoder is a circuit that changes a code into a set of signals i.e it converts the single output into no of signals. It is given to the microcontroller part for further processing.

TheMicrocontroller part:

The interfacing circuitry of the Unipolar Gear Motor with microcontroller AT89C51 is used.The AT89C51 provides asetofstandardfeatures: 4Kbytes offlash,128 bytesofRAM,32I/Olines,two16-bittimer/counters,five vectortwo-levelinterruptarchitecture. Herewehaveused L293Dasthemotordriver. Port0isgetting theinputfrom theoutput oftheLDR inparticularbitpattern.Using programitiscomparedthebitpatternandsendsignalto themotor driver todrivethegear motor inspecified direction.

Motor driver: L293D with gear motor part: The L293D is

aquadruple high-current half-H driver designedtoprovidebidirectionaldrivecurrentsofupto600-mAatvoltagesfrom4.5Vto36V.Itisdesignedtodriveinductiveloadssuchasrelays,solenoids, dcand bipolarstepping motors,aswellasotherhigh-current/high- voltage loads in positive-supply applications.

A DC motor in simple words is a device that converts direct current(electrical energy) into mechanical energy. gear motors are designed to have a lot of force, or torque, while operating at low speeds. They have an output of 1,200 to 3,600 revolutions per minute, or RPMs, and use the power of a magnetic field. When the signal is received from the microcontroller, it will move towards the LDR where it has high intensity.

V. SOFTWARE PART

The microcontroller chip AT89C51 is directed as the program in its flash memory instructs it. So it is obvious to load the program into the chip. Program is written in KEIL C51and compiled. If any compilation error occurs, then it is debugged. Then the HEX-code is generated. Then the program is simulated in 8051 simulator. This gives an opportunity to see what will be the result of the code. If the code gives desired result then the USB based flash magic is used to load the program; or to ‗burn‘ the chip. USB based flash magic is basically a universal programmer. After downloading the HEX code in the chip is again connected to the main circuit. Protous is also used to draw the circuit for similationg to get the result.

VI. CONCLUSION

In this project a solar tracker has been developed to increase the amount of power generated by the solar panel as the sun traverses across the sky. An 8051 microcontroller was used to control the movement of the solar panel. The system is designed to be automatic ; such that energy generated by the solar panel would be used to charge two lead acid batteries.. All the readings are taken very carefully during the project to eliminate the errors as many as possible. Solar Energy is one of the most popular renewable sources nowadays. It is being widely used also, and within some more years it will be very popular that it will be used for many purposes, in industries and household as well. So it is most important fact to utilize the maximum energy of the sun so that maximum power can be generated.. In many places experiment is being done on this fact how it is possible to make full use of the day light. This project has got a bright future scope further. Accuracy of this solar panel can be increased further and number of steps can be increased as well to get more accurate desired output. Timer circuit is also be integrated with this so that this system responses more accurately. Even in a cloudy day when intensity of sunlight may vary at different time of a day, the timer circuit can be more that handy to drive the solar panel correctly in that low light. As per energy

concerned solar energy is one of the most promising energy which is going to be a main source of energy in near future. A cost effective intelligent sun tracking system to extract maximum solar energy possible has been designed.

VII.REFERENCES

[1] B.Suchitha Samuel, J.Mrudula, ―Design of Intelligent Solar Tracker Robot for Surveillance,‖International Journal of Advanced Research in Electrical, Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, Vol. 2, Issue 10, October 2013.

[2] Bhavesh Pandey1, Anita Agrawal, ―Automatic Sun Tracking System Using PSoC,‖ International Journal of Innovative Research in Science, Engineering and Technology, Vol. 1, Issue 1, November 2012.

[3] Sobuj Kumar Ray, Md. Abul Bashar, Maruf Ahmad & Fahad Bin Sayed , ―Two Ways of Rotating Freedom Solar Tracker by Using ADC of Microcontroller ‖, Global Journal of Researches in Engineering General Engineering‖, Volume 12 Issue 4 Version 1.0 Year 2012.

[4] Mazidi Md.Ali, Mazidi J.G.,―The 8051 Microcontroller and Embedded systems‖, Pearson Education, 2nd edition.

[5] kais i. abdul-lateef, ―a low cost single-axis sun tracker system using pic microcontroller,‖ diyala journal of engineering sciences, vol. 05, no. 01, pp.65-78, june 2012.

[6] Meghana Sharma, ―An Efficient Low Cost Solar Tracker Using Microcontroller,‖ IOSR Journal of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IOSR-JEEE), Volume 9, Issue 4 Ver. V (Jul – Aug. 2014), PP 37-40.

[7] Mostefa Ghassoul, ―Design of an Automatic Solar Tracking System to Maximize Energy Extraction,‖ International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering, Volume 3, Issue 5, May 2013.

[8] http://www.8051projects.net/stepper-motor-interfacing/step-sequence.php

[9] http://www.hbeonlabs.com/reports/Time Operated Solar Tracking System_Report.pdf

[10] http://www.icee.usm.edu/ICEE/conferences/asee2007/papers /1213_A_MICROCONTROLLER_BASED_SOLAR_PANE