Experimental and Fabrication of Solar Panel

Tracking Using the Real Time Clock

Aravind K, Chandramouli M, Chitrarasu B
Final Year Mechanical Engineering, Bannari Amman Institute of Technology
And Kumaresan G,
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Bannari Amman Institute of Technology.
Abstract The growth or energy demand in response to natural time relational table is implemented as an algorithm
industrialization, urbanization and social affluence has led to an to track the sun position to achieve maximum energy.
extremely uneven global distribution of primary energy Finally, a comparison between the tracking system and the
consumption. The Sun, Wind, Waves and geothermal heat are fixed system is made. From the experimental results, the
renewable energy sources that will never run out. They are self-
proposed tracking system is verified more efficiently in
renewal. The rate of consumption does not exceed rate of
renewability. The cost of generating electricity from wind and generating energy than the fixed system.
solar power has decreased by 90% over the past 20 years. Project Objective
Maximizing power output from a solar system is desirable to
increase the efficiency of a solar tracing system. To maximize
the power output from solar panels, we need to keep the panels The main objective of done this project is to develop an
aligned with the sun. In this project, the design of an efficient automatic system for solar panel deviation and produce more
solar tracking system based on Real Time Clock (RTC) using amount of power for consumption and specific objectives of
microcontroller. The proposed tracking system is a low cost, this project are listed as followed:
high accurate, more efficient with low power consumption. The
IC RTC is able to regulate the movement of solar panel about i. Will automatically changes the direction of the solar
15 degree per hour. The updating position of solar panel is panel based on the time based on which the
constantly changed, but the approach is enough for capturing calculation is made to rotate the solar panel using
sunlight energy for generation of power by the solar panel.
the dc motor. This project is done by developing the
circuit of Light Real time clock which is could
detect the time and circuit of microcontroller to run
Index Termsreal time clock, microcontroller, solar the setup. Programming the controller to control the
powered, automatic tracking. motor to rotate the solar panel using the dc motor
based on the time.
I. INTRODUCTION
ii. The time in hours is calculated for which the sun
T he regeneration energy also called the green energy, has
gained much importance nowadays. Green energy can be
recycled, much like solar energy, water power, wind power,
would be in particular position and the solar panel
to be placed in that angle for particular amount of
time. Basically the angle solar panel to be deviated
biomass energy, terrestrial heat, temperature difference of
is 15* for every one hour of time.
sea, sea waves, morning and evening tides, etc. Among the
non-conventional, renewable energy sources, solar energy
affords great potential for conversion into electric power, iii. This project will produce more power output than
able to ensure an important part of the electrical energy needs the standard solar panel and it is automatic process
of the planet. The conversion principle of solar light into where the solar panel deviation is controlled by the
Electricity is called Photo-Voltaic (PV) conversion. It is not microcontroller. The project will display the
very new, but the efficiency improvement of the PV program codded to the microcontroller and the
conversion equipment is still one of top priorities for many position of sun based on time.
academic and industrial research groups all over the world.
Among the proposed solutions for improving the efficiency II. LITERATURE REVIEW
of PV conversion, we can mention solar tracking, the This literature review explains about relevant past
optimization of solar cell configuration and geometry, new research and project development which is used the almost
materials and technologies, etc. The topic proposed in this similar system for this project.
project refers to the design of a single axis solar tracker
A. Automatic Solar Panel Deviation
system that automatically adjusts the optimum PV panel
position with respect to the sun by means of a DC motor Several MPPT techniques together with their
controlled by an intelligent controller unit that equipped with implementation are reported in the literature. Researchers
a positioning algorithm to mathematically solve the optimum always feel confused while selecting an MPPT technique
tracker position for any time of the day using RTC. A for a particular application. Unfortunately, only a few
practical measurement of the sun position with respect to the techniques were available in this field including Curve
fitting, Fractional Short Circuit Current, Fractional Open
Circuit Voltage, Look Up Table, One Cycle Control, Wire conducts these electrons, either to batteries or
Perturb and Observe, Incremental Conductance and to the regular electrical system of the house, to be used by
Feedback techniques earlier that includes discussions on appliances and other household electrical items. In many
MPPT techniques until 2007. But many new MPPT solar energy systems, the battery stores energy for later use.
techniques such as Fuzzy logic, Artificial Neural Network, This is especially true when the sun is shining strongly.
Adaptive Perturbation and Observation, Estimated perturb
and perturb, Genetic Algorithm, Adaptive Neuro fuzzy and C. Closed Loop Sun Tracker
particle swarm optimization based MPPT, etc., have been Closed-loop types of sun tracking systems are based
reported since then illustrated in other papers. on feedback control principles. In these systems, a number
It is necessary to prepare a review that includes all of inputs are transferred to a controller from sensors which
the efficient and effective MPPT techniques proposed detect relevant parameters induced by the sun,
before 2007 and after that until 2013. A review, comparison manipulated in the controller and then yield outputs (i.e.
of the MPPT techniques on the basis of their advantages, sensor-based). In 1986, Ahmed yaroveta first increased
disadvantages, control variables involved, types of the output power of a solar photoelectric station in
circuitry, complexity of algorithm, complexity level on Kazakhstan from 357 W to 500 W by integrating the
hardware implementation, and types of scientific and station with an automatic sun tracking system. Several
commercial application is described. Among all the MPPT years later, Maish developed a control system called Solar
methods, Perturb & Observe (P&O) and Incremental Track to provide sun tracking, night and emergency
Conductance (IC) are most commonly used because of their storage, communication, and manual drive control
simple implementation and lesser time to track the functions for one- and two axis solar trackers in a low-
maximum power point and also other economic reasons cost, user-friendly package. The control algorithm used a
Under suddenly changing weather conditions (irradiation six-degree self-alignment routine and a self-adjusting
level) as MPP changes continuously, P&O takes it as a motor actuation time in order to improve both the pointing
change in MPP due to perturbation rather than that of accuracy and the system reliability. The experimental
irradiation and sometimes ends up in calculating wrong results showed that the control system enabled a full-day
MPP. However this problem is eliminated in Incremental pointing accuracy of better than +0.1o to be achieved. In
Conductance method as the algorithm takes two samples of 1992, Agarwal presented a two axis tracking system
voltage and current to compute MPP [19]. However, consisting of worm gear drives and four bar-type
instead of more efficiency the complexity of the algorithm kinematic linkages to facilitate the accurate focusing of
is very high compared to the former one and hence the cost the reflectors in a solar concentrator system. In the same
of execution increases. year, Enslin applied the principles of maximum power
B. Solar Tracker by Sensor point tracking (MPPT) to realize a power electronic
Solar tracking system project had been widely converter for transforming the output voltage of a solar
employed by the other giant company like BP Solar, Yingli panel to the required DC battery bus voltage.
Green Energy, Kyocera, Q-Cells, Sanyo, Sharp Solar, Solar The first LDR detected the focus state of the
World, Sun Power, and Sun-tech. Now, many people use collector, while the second and third LDRs were designed
solar energy or photovoltaic energy as an alternative power to establish the presence (or absence) of cloud cover and
because its free and renewable. As we can see now, the to discriminate between day and night, respectively. The
payment charge for an electricity had been risen rapidly output signals from the three LDRs were fed to an
because the increasing of gas price. Many researchers have electronic control system which actuated a low-speed 12 -
tried to find the alternative energy to replace the gas. One V DC motor in such a way as to rotate the collector such
of the alternative energy that we can use is photovoltaic that it remained pointed toward the sun .In 1997, Stone
energy. Photovoltaic energy is the most promising and and Sutherland presented a multiple tracking
popular form of solar energy. In solar photovoltaic, sunlight measurement system comprising more than 100 heliostats
is actually converted into electricity. This is very different for tracking the suns position on an hourly basis from
from a conventional understanding of solar power as only a early morning to late evening. Hua and Shen compared the
way of heating water. Photovoltaic, now the biggest usage solar tracking efficiencies of various MPPT algorithms
of solar energy around the world, is briefly explained and implemented a simple control method which
below: combined a discrete time control scheme and a
Sunlight is made of photons, small particles of proportional-integral (PI) controller to track the maximum
energy. These photons are absorbed by and pass through the power points (MPPs) of a solar array.
material of a solar cell or solar photovoltaic panel. The The goal of an MPPT system is to provide a fixed
photons agitate the electrons found in the material of the input voltage and/or current, such that the solar panel is
photovoltaic cell. As they begin to move or are dislodged, held at the maximum power point, while allowing the
these are routed into a current. This, technically, is output to match the battery voltage. In the converter was
electricity - the movement of electrons along a path. Solar controlled to track the maximum power point of the input
panels made of silicon to convert sunlight into electricity. source under varying input and output parameters and was
Solar photovoltaic are used in a number of ways, primarily shown to provide a minimum input source saving of 15%
to power homes that are inter-tied or interconnected with for 3-5 kWh/day systems.
the grid.
D. Open Type Sun Tracker solar declination. The solar noon angle or altitude angle
An open-loop type of controller computes its input maximum can be calculated as follows:
into a system using only the current state and the Where the solar declination angle is the line
algorithm of the system and without using feedback to latitude where the sunlight arrives on certain location in
determine if its input has achieved the desired goal i.e. particular day of the year. Therefore, the solar declination
algorithm-based. The system is simpler and cheaper than is depending on the day number (n), for example n= 1 is
the closed-loop type of sun tracking systems. It does not for January 1, and n = 365 is for December 31. The
observe the output of the processes that it is controlling. equation can be expressed as in figure.
Consequently, an open-loop system cannot correct any Equation implies that the solar declination varies
errors so that it could make and may not compensate for sinusoidal between 23.5o on the day number 81. In the
disturbances in the system. calendar, the day number of 81 is the spring equinox,
Open-loop control algorithms of sun tracking March 21 where the sun is exactly over the equator. In the
systems utilize some form of solar irradiation geometry Northern hemisphere, the highest point of solar noon on
model. In 1983, Al-Naima and Yaghobian developed a the summer solstice; while the highest point of solar noon
solar tracking system featuring a two-axis equatorial on the winter solstice.
mount and a microprocessor, in which the tracking In this study, we are designing solar tracker for
operation was performed on the basis of the astronomical PV application in equator region. The local latitude of our
coordinates of the sun. The experimental results city, Makassar, South Sulawesi of Indonesia is located the
demonstrated that the proposed system yielded a maximum solar noon can be shown. It can be seen that the
significantly better tracking performance than that solar noon deviates not too far away from the equator. It
obtained by a conventional sensor controlled system. means that the quality of sunlight intensity can be
Several years later, Lorenz proposed a set of design guaranteed good annually. Therefore, we do not have such
guidelines for a window glazing which rejected solar kind of summer or winter solstice in equatorial region.
radiation during the summer, but accepted it during the The only need for operating the solar tracker in this region
winter. The design featured a purely passive control is to manually adjust the module either facing North or
algorithm based on seasonal changes in the incident angle South, which can be done every six months.
of the solar rays. In addition, it is important to determine how
Advances in the algorithms of sun tracking systems much the angle of designed solar tracker is required to
have enabled the development of many solar thermal and drive the PV module for perpendicular to the direction of
photovoltaic systems for a diverse variety of applications sunlight. If we assume the solar noon at 12 p.m. and the
in recent years. Compared to their traditional fixed- initial angle at 8 a.m. is 30*, then every hour the angle of
position counterparts, solar systems which track the solar tracker should be updated every 15*. After the
changes in the suns trajectory over the course of the day module reaches the position at 4 p.m., control mechanism
collect a far greater amount of solar energy, and therefore is applied to reset the solar tracker to the position similar
generate a significantly higher output power. This paper to 8 a.m. It means that the angle of PV module turns back
has presented a review of the major algorithms for sun to 30* and waits for the next day operation.
tracking systems developed over the past 20 years.
. Having reviewed existing solar vector prediction
algorithms, the authors developed a new algorithm for
predicting the solar vector given a knowledge of the time
given as the date and the Universal Time and the location
given as the longitude and latitude of the observer in
degrees. The performance of the proposed was verified by
evaluating the direction of the sun vector for 447,048
reference values of the true horizontal coordinates of the
sun over the period 1999 to 2015. It was shown that the
algorithm enabled the direction of the solar vector to be
determined with an error of less than 0.5 minutes of arc.
It compares the sun vectors generated by the proposed
algorithm with those computed using the algorithm
proposed by Michalsky in 1988.

E. Calculation of the Angle

The particular interest regarding to the
determination of angle movement of solar tracker is the
daily pattern of sun movement. The sun rises in the east,
then reaches solar noon before set somewhere in the west. Figure 1 Angle of Sun
The solar noon is the highest elevation of sun in the sky,
which depends on the local latitude of location (L) and Solar tracker is successfully performed to rotate the PV
module based on the targeted design. Now, we need to
know how much the increasing in power of PV module can be fabricated much more economically by welding or
achieved using this solar tracker in compared to the hand forging the steel.
system without solar tracker. The PV system with solar D. Availability of Material
tracker will be rotated automatically every 15 degree per Some materials may be scarce or in short supply, it then
hour from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. based on the initial assumption becomes obligatory for the designer to use some other
of apparent movement of sunlight in equator region. As a material which though may not be a perfect substitute for the
result, the PV module will be perpendicular continuously material designed. The delivery of materials and the delivery
to the direction of sunlight with simple actuator device. If date of product should also be kept in mind.
the angle is arbitrarily changed, for instance 10 degree E. Space Consideration
every hour, then the hardware needs to be modified. If the Sometimes high strength materials have to be selected
time interval movement is changed, then the because the forces involved are high and space limitations
microcontroller program is updated and so the hardware. are there.
In comparison to steady PV module (without solar F. Cost
tracker), the angle of module is constant of 45, 90 and 135 As in any other problem, in selection of material the
degrees to represent the sunlight position, such as just cost of material plays an important part and should not be
after sunrise, noon and before sunset respectively. ignored.
Sometimes factors like scrap utilization, appearance,
III. FACTORS DETERMINING THE CHOICE OF and non-maintenance of the designed part are involved in the
MATERIALS selection of proper materials.
The various factors which determine the choice of
material are discussed below. IV. COMPONENTS
A. Properties A. Microcontroller
The material selected must possess the necessary
properties for the proposed application. The various LPC2148 development board with built in ADC and
requirements to be satisfied can be weight, surface finish, RS232 features. A 6V, 300mA solar panel is fixed to the
rigidity, ability to withstand environmental attack from rotor of the DC motor. Communication between controller
chemicals, service life, reliability etc. and Personal Computer (PC) is established through serial
The following four types of principle properties of communication using RS232 to record the output voltage.
materials decisively affect their selection The recorded output voltage from the panel is stored in the
a. Physical data base for analyses. The DC motor control input signals
b. Mechanical are connected to the controller and the output of the panel
c. From manufacturing point of view was connected to a load that would dissipate 9W that would
d. Chemical match the panels rating 9W at 12V corresponds to a current
The various physical properties concerned are melting of 0.75A, so by Ohms law; a load resistance was calculated
point, thermal Conductivity, specific heat, coefficient of as being 16. A 15, 50W resistor was the closest value
thermal expansion, specific gravity, electrical conductivity, found and was connected to the panel. The tracking device
magnetic purposes etc. still requires power, but a 12V battery that is connected in a
The various Mechanical Properties Concerned are charging arrangement with the solar panel supplies it. The
strength in tensile, Compressive shear, bending, torsional voltage across and current through the load was monitored
and buckling load, fatigue resistance, impact resistance, using ADC channels of the controller, and was recorded
elastic limit, endurance limit, and modulus of elasticity, every half hour on a clear day into a data base. The readings
hardness, wear resistance and sliding properties. were taken on a span of days that possessed similar
The various properties concerned from the conditions including no cloud cover.
manufacturing point of view are,
Cast ability B. Electric Motor
Weld ability
An electric motor is an electrical machine that converts
Surface properties
electrical energy into mechanical energy. The reverse of this
Shrinkage
is the conversion of mechanical energy into electrical energy
Deep drawing etc.
and is done by an electric generator.
B. Manufacturing Case
In normal motoring mode, most electric motors operate
Sometimes the demand for lowest possible
through the interaction between an electric motor's magnetic
manufacturing cost or surface qualities obtainable by the
field and winding currents to generate force within the motor.
application of suitable coating substances may demand the
In certain applications, such as in the transportation industry
use of special materials.
with traction motors, electric motors can operate in both
C. Quality Required
motoring and generating or braking modes to also produce
This generally affects the manufacturing process and
electrical energy from mechanical energy.
ultimately the material. For example, it would never be
desirable to go casting of a less number of components which
C. Solar Panel circuit and re-transmitted it on another circuit. Relays were
A solar panel is a device that collects and converts solar used extensively in telephone exchanges and early computers
energy into electricity or heat. It known as Photovoltaic to perform logical operations.
panels, used to generate electricity directly from sunlight A type of relay that can handle the high power
Solar thermal energy collection systems, used to generate required to directly control an electric motor or other loads is
electricity through a system of mirrors and fluid-filled tubes called a contactor. Solid-state relays control power circuits
solar thermal collector, used to generate heat solar hot water with no moving parts, instead using a semiconductor device
panel, used to heat water. It is energy portal. A solar power to perform switching. Relays with calibrated operating
technology uses solar cells or solar photovoltaic arrays to characteristics and sometimes multiple operating coils are
convert light from the sun directly into electricity. used to protect electrical circuits from overload or faults; in
Photovoltaic, is in which light is converted into modern electric power systems these functions are performed
electrical power. It is best known as a method for generating by digital instruments still called protective relays.
solar power by using solar cells packaged in photovoltaic
modules, often electrically connected in multiples as solar F. Limit Switches
photovoltaic arrays to convert energy from the sun into Limit switches are used in a variety of applications and
electricity. The photovoltaic solar panel is photons from environments because of their ruggedness, ease of
sunlight knock electrons into a higher state of energy, installation, and reliability of operation. They can determine
creating electricity. the presence or absence, passing, positioning, and end of
Solar cells produce direct current electricity from light, travel of an object. They were first used to define the limit of
which can be used to power equipment or to recharge a travel of an object; hence the name Limit Switch.
battery. A less common form of the technologies is thermos
G. Worm Gear
photovoltaic, in which the thermal radiation from some hot
body other than the sun is utilized. Photovoltaic devices are A gearbox designed using a worm and worm-wheel is
also used to produce electricity in optical wireless power considerably smaller than one made from plain spur gears,
transmission. and has its drive axes at 90 to each other. With a single
start worm, for each 360 turn of the worm, the worm-gear
D. Real Time Clock
advances only one tooth of the gear. Therefore, regardless of
Real Time Clock is basically correlated with time the worm's size sensible engineering limits notwithstanding,
output from seconds to hours and from date to year. Another the gear ratio is the size of the worm gear to 1. Given a single
function is the IC RTC can be used to store permanent data start worm, a 20 tooth worm gear reduces the speed by the
in the internal RAM RTC, because the data cannot be loosed ratio of 20:1. With spur gears, a gear of 12 teeth must match
although the power supply is disconnected. It is due to the with a 240 tooth gear to achieve the same 20:1 ratio.
battery embedded in the IC system to power the clock all the Therefore, if the diametrical pitch (DP) of each gear is the
time. Beside this, the IC RTC also can be used as the timer same, then, in terms of the physical size of the 240 tooth gear
and alarm. For time output calculation, this device is valid up to that of the 20 tooth gear, the worm arrangement is
to 2100 year with mode selection either 12 or 24 hour clock considerably smaller in volume.
with a.m. and p.m. in 12 hour mode. Electronically, the IC
Unlike with ordinary gear trains, the direction of
RTC DS1307 utilizes I2C technique with capability of 2
transmission input shaft verses output shaft is not reversible
paths of transferring serial data in compared with 3 paths in
when using large reduction ratios, due to the greater friction
SPI and Micro Wire techniques.
involved between the worm and worm-wheel, when usually
All techniques have basically one path for clock. a single start one spiral worm is used. This can be an
The remaining 1 path in I2C has the capability of advantage when it is desired to eliminate any possibility of
bidirectional data transfer, while the 2 paths of SPI and Micro the output driving the input. If a multi-start worm multiple
Wire have only capable in single directional of input-output spirals is used then the ratio reduces accordingly and
data transfer. The protocol communication of I2C in RTC the braking effect of a worm and worm-gear may need to be
DS1307 is similar to the access EEPROM serial type of discounted, as the gear may be able to drive the worm.
24C04. The mechanism is sending start-bit, address of RTC
(0xC0) with bit R/W low then the register number is willing H. Battery
to be accessed. In our project, we are using secondary type battery. It is
rechargeable type. A battery is one or more electrochemical
E. Relay cells, which store chemical energy and make it available as
A relay is an electrically operated switch. Many electric current. There are two types of batteries, primary
relays use an electromagnet to mechanically operate a (disposable) and secondary (rechargeable), both of which
switch, but other operating principles are also used, such convert chemical energy to electrical energy. Primary
as solid-state relays. Relays are used where it is necessary to batteries can only be used once because they use up their
control a circuit by a separate low-power signal, or where chemicals in an irreversible reaction. Secondary batteries can
several circuits must be controlled by one signal. The first be recharged because the chemical reactions they use are
relays were used in long distance telegraph circuits as reversible; they are recharged by running a charging current
amplifiers: they repeated the signal coming in from one through the battery, but in the opposite direction of the
discharge current. Secondary, also called rechargeable because the microcontroller and its support circuits are often
batteries can be charged and discharged many times before built into, or embedded in, the devices they control.
wearing out. After wearing out some batteries can be
recycled.
Batteries have gained popularity as they became J. Working
portable and useful for many purposes. The use of batteries The power supply is given to the tracking system
has created many environmental concerns, such as toxic from external battery.7805 voltage regulator converts this
metal pollution. A battery is a device that converts chemical incoming power supply into 5 volts in order to provide
energy directly to electrical energy it consists of one or more supply to other components in the system. The program to
voltaic cells. Each voltaic cell consists of two half cells the AT89S52 micro controller is given through ISP pins.
connected in series by a conductive electrolyte. Based on RTC, the number of tilts of the panel will be set
One half-cell is the positive electrode, and the other is manually using four switches that are fed as an inputs to the
the negative electrode. The electrodes do not touch each 74LS21 AND gate and its output as an interrupt to the
other but are electrically connected by the electrolyte, which controller. Real Time, Tilt time settings are displayed on
can be either solid or liquid. A battery can be simply LCD which is connected to Port 1 of the micro controller. In
modelled as a perfect voltage source which has its own this project, we use 4 tilts for tracking purpose and 5th tilt for
resistance, the resulting voltage across the load depends on bringing the panel back to the initial position. The RTC
the ratio of the battery's internal resistance to the resistance continuously runs and sends a high output to the
of the load. microcontroller at our prescribed tilt time. Then
When the battery is fresh, its internal resistance is low, microcontroller sends a high output to the motor driver which
so the voltage across the load is almost equal to that of the drives the DC motors connected to the panel. Flow chart of
battery's internal voltage source. As the battery runs down
the RTC based solar tracking system. The controller will
and its internal resistance increases, the voltage drop across
continuously reads the Real Time Clock (RTC) and
its internal resistance increases, so the voltage at its terminals
compares with the tabular values stored, if it matches with
decreases, and the battery's ability to deliver power to the
those values the corresponding positional values will be
load decreases.
send to the controller which will make the motor to
I. Control Unit operate to rotate solar panel to sun shine.
The Control Unit is digital circuitry contained within
the processor that coordinates the sequence of data
movements into, out of, and between a processor's many sub-
units. The result of these routed data movements through
various digital circuits within the processor produces the
manipulated data expected by a software instruction loaded
earlier, likely from memory. In a way, the CU is the brain
within the brain, as it controls conducts data flow inside the
processor and additionally provides several external control
signals to the rest of the computer to further direct data and
instructions to/from processor external destinations
Microcontrollers are destined to play an increasingly
important role in revolutionizing various industries and
influencing our day to day life more strongly than one can
imagine. Figure 2 Block Diagram
Since its emergence in the early 1980's the
microcontroller has been recognized as a general-purpose
building block for intelligent digital systems. It is finding
using diverse area, starting from simple children's toys to
highly complex spacecraft.
Because of its versatility and many advantages, the
application domain has spread in all conceivable directions,
making it ubiquitous. Microprocessor system is implemented
with a single chip microcontroller. This could be called
microcomputer, as all the major parts are in the IC. Most
frequently they are called microcontroller because they are
used they are used to perform control functions.
A microcontroller is a Computer on a Chip, or, if you
prefer, a single-chip computer. Micro suggests that the
device is small, and controller tells you that the device might
be used to control objects, processes, or events. Another term
Figure 3 Assembly Drawing
to describe a microcontroller is embedded controller,
 The panel rotation or tilt angles will be initially fixed in [3] J. A. Beltran, C.D. Garcia-Beltran, J. L. S. Gonzalez
the program that is given to the microcontroller. The output Rubio, Design, Manufacturing and Performance
of solar panel is connected to Op Amp which amplifies the Test of a Solar Tracker Made by an Embedded
signal and gives it to the ADC which is connected to the port Control, CERMA 2007, Mexico.
1 of the microcontroller. Voltage generated by the panel as [4] R. Hovsapian, A. M. Morega, P. A. Negoias,J. C.
per the individual tilt time is displayed on LCD. It has motor Ordonez, R. Hovsapian, Spherical Photovoltaic
driver development board with built in ADC and RS232 Cells A Construal Approach to Their
features. A 6V, 300mA solar panel is fixed to the rotor of the Optimization, OPTIM 2006, Romania.
DC motor. The DC motor control input signals are connected [5] M. A. Panait, T. Tudorache, A Simple Neural
to the controller and the output of the panel was connected to Network Solar Tracker for Optimizing Conversion
a load that would dissipate 9W that would match the panels Efficiency in Off- Grid Solar Generators, ICREPQ
rating. 9W at 12V corresponds to a current of 0.75A, so by 2012, Spain.
Ohms law a load resistance was calculated as being 16. A [6] Y. Chaiko J and Rizk, Solar Tracking System:
15, 50W resistor was the closest value found and was More Efficient Use of Solar Panels, World
connected to the panel. The tracking device still requires Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology,
power, but a 12V battery that is connected in a charging Vol. 41, 2008.
arrangement with the solar panel supplies it. The voltage
across and current through the load was monitored using
ADC channels of the controller, and was recorded every half
hour on a clear day into a data base. The readings were taken
on a span of days that possessed similar conditions including
no cloud cover.

V. CONCLUSION
The design of microcontroller based an efficient
solar tracking system with real time clock is developed and
described. The proposed system provides a variable
indication of their relative angle to the sun by comparing with
pre-defined measured readings. By using this method, the
solar tracker was successfully maintained a solar array at a
sufficiently perpendicular angle to the Sun. The power
increase gained over a fixed horizontal array was in excess
of 40%. The proposed design is achieved with low power
consumption, high accuracy and low cost.
We provide automatic feature reset after 4 p.m. to
pull back the PV module to the position of 8 a.m. and waiting
the next day operation. This feature increases the efficiency
operation of system. The materials and components can be
easily found in the market with low price and constructed
without having special knowledge for design.
Advances in the algorithms of sun tracking systems
have enabled the development of many solar thermal and
photovoltaic systems for a diverse variety of applications in
recent years. Compared to their traditional fixed-position
counterparts, solar systems which track the changes in the
suns trajectory over the course of the day collect a far greater
amount of solar energy, and therefore generate a significantly
higher output power.

VI. REFERENCES
[1] .S.Rahman, Green power: What is it and where we
can find it, IEEE power and energy magazine,vol.1
no.1 2011.
[2] M. A. Panait, T. Tudorache, A Simple Neural
Network Solar Tracker for Optimizing Conversion
Efficiency in Off- Grid Solar Generators, ICREPQ
2008, Spain.