INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MECHANICS

DOI: 10.46300/9104.2020.14.21 Volume 14, 2020

Proposed Method for Two Axis Tracking of PV

Modules Using Advanced Microcontroller
Emad A. Sweelem, Mohamed I. Abu El-Sebah, Fathy A. Syam, Abouelmaaty M.Aly, Hanaa M.Farghally

Electronics Research Institute,

National Research Center Building, Dokki, Giza, 12622
Egypt
Received: June 3, 2020. Revised: September 14, 2020. Accepted: September 28, 2020. Published: September 30, 2020.

 the same place almost invariant in a month and varies. little.

Abstract— In this study, a stand-alone photovoltaic
(latitude ± 10°) in a year. So, a single axis position. Control.
power system was designed and implemented to operate as
an application of a digital control system. Sun-tracker is scheme may be enough for the collection. of solar. Energy. in
implemented for improved efficiency of the system by
some applications. [4],[5]. So, the average of solar energy is
keeping the solar module perpendicular to the sun's
incoming rays. An experimental system was implemented not always maximized. Solar cell tracking system is essential
to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system.
Experimental results are given to verify the system's for many applications such as thermal energy storage-systems
efficiency. A proposed method is employed to seek the and solar energy-based power-generation systems in order to
maximum power point using two lighting sensors the data
obtained from a two sensor is compared by get benefit to the system performance [6]. The variation in
microcontroller. Microcontroller is making PV module sun’s position is monitored, and the system. Always. Keeps.
track the maximum sun light which leads to obtain a
maximum power. The system is implemented using That. the plane of the panel. is normal. to the direction. of the
microcontroller and stepper motor and experimental work sun.,[6]. A little design. Methodologies. of PV tracking system
used to prove feasibility of the proposed method.
Keywords— Digital Control, Microcontroller, PV, Solar have been introduced in recent days [7],[8]. The dual axis
cell tracking. solar tracker uses an elevation actuator and an azimuth

I. INTRODUCTION actuator to alter the azimuth of an attached solar panel.

S. Shanmugam. et al. had. Given. the tracking. of the. Microcontroller. control the actuator. controller circuit. that
Sun. for solar paraboloidal. dish concentrators in [1]. Rong. - control the actuators. The Maximum. Power. point (MPP)
Jong. Wai et al. had. Given. Grid Connected photovoltaic (PV) tracking and output voltage. regulation (OVR) represent. the
generation. System. with an adaptive step-perturbation (ASP) two control. Modes. of a MIC [9]. Both control modes are
method and an active sun tracking scheme [2]. Cemil. Sungur. influenced. by the existence. of multiple. local maxima. and
Had. Given. the electromechanical. Control. System. of a PV one global MPP on the power–voltage characteristics of the
tracking the sun through the axis it moved along according to PV module [10],[11]. The existence of several local maxima is
its azimuth angle. [3]. The elevation. Angle. of the sun. be in attributed to the mismatch. between the submodules. due to
fabrication. tolerances, dust accumulation, or partial shading
[12], [13], [14]. In this context, the efficacy. of both controls.

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DOI: 10.46300/9104.2020.14.21 Volume 14, 2020

modes rely. on various. factors. For the global MPP tracking.

Mode., on the one hand, the utilized. number of sensors,
speed. and accuracy. of tracking, ease. of implementation, and
cost are used. for quality assessment. [15], [16]. On the other
hand, tight dc bus voltage. control and balanced. power
sharing between. sources, also low converter power. Losses.
and the corresponding. Reduced. Heat. accumulation are the
indicators of the quality of the OVR mode [17].
Fig. 2: Block diagram circuit for dual-axis solar tracker.
In this paper, the MPP system is designed and successfully
implemented a digital controller system that is specifically
III. MPP TRACKING SYSTEM DESIGN
used in photovoltaic. This system makes the solar panel
tracking the light by using two photo sensors. The dual axis tracking technique is designed to track the sun
in both azimuth and altitude angles to enable the PV panel
II. MOTION OF THE SUN THROUGHOUT THE YEAR
perpendicular to the illumination of the sun:
A. Importance of Sun position
The PV panel used in this system amorphous silicon solar
Fig.1 shows the diagrammatic view where it shows the suns
cell, the maximum output power is 60W, open circuit voltage
motion in summer, winter & in spring. In a year sun takes
is 22V, short circuit current is 3.4A and its dimensions
different path in the sky. latitude only says the exact path of
315*925 mm and its weight 7.1 Kg (Fig. 3)
sun.

Fig. 3: Solar cell Module.

The mechanical mechanism as shown in Fig. 3 includes a

stepper motor and DC motor. The system consists of PV panel,
frame, stepper motor, DC motor, sensor circuit and driver
circuits.
Fig. 1: Diagrammatic view of motion of the sun throughout the year.

B. Dual-axis solar tracker A. Stepper Motor

A direct current (DC) motor runs by itself when voltage is
It (Fig. 2) shows the block. diagram of dual axis solar. tracker. supplied to it. In a DC motor, a split-ring commutator switches
Normally solar panel generate. solar power which is used for the direction of the current through the magnetic field coils
charging 12-volt battery. PIC microcontroller only gets power each half rotation to maintain the shaft’s direction of motion.
from the voltage regulator which is derived by battery. LCD. is A stepper motor can be viewed as an electric motor without a
attached with microcontroller and for exchanging. information commutator. All windings in the stepper motor are part of the
with a user a 4 ×4 matrix keypad is used. stator. The rotor is a permanent magnet or, in the case of

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DOI: 10.46300/9104.2020.14.21 Volume 14, 2020

variable reluctance motors, a toothed block of some input pulses.

magnetically soft material. The motor controller handles all of
the commutation externally. Typically, the motor and IV. EXPERIMENTAL WORK

controller are designed so that the motor can be held in any A proposed method is employed to seek the
fixed position as well as rotated one way or the other. With the maximum power point using two lighting sensors the
appropriate controller, a stepper motor can start and stop “on a data obtained from a two sensor is compared by
dime” at controlled orientations. The repeatability of
microcontroller. Microcontroller is making PV
positioning with a stepper motor depends on the geometry of
module track the maximum sun light which leads to
the motor rotor. Some applications have the flexibility of using
obtain a maximum power. The system is
either stepper motors or servomotors. Although both types of
implemented using microcontroller and stepper motor
motors offer similar opportunities for precise positioning, they
differ in several ways. Servomotors require analog feedback and experimental work used to prove feasibility of the
control systems. Typically, this involves a potentiometer to proposed method.
provide feedback about the rotor position and circuitry to drive
A. Interfacing Circuit.
a current through the motor. The current is inversely
Fig. 4 shows the power supply implemented to feed
proportional to the difference between the desired position and
each element in the whole circuit which ensure the supply to
the current position. Stepper motors can be used in simple
the circuit and the stepper motor. Interfacing circuit has been
open-loop control systems. They are generally adequate for
implemented to subject the PV module to the light ensuring the
systems that operate at low accelerations with static loads.
maximum power generated. The two light sensors which used
to detect the light direction are connected as shown in Fig. 5.
a. Stepper Motor Advantages
Stepper motor interfacing circuit is shown in Fig.6 which uses
1. The rotation angle of the motor is proportional to the input
ULN 2003 as a driver to the stepper motor. The stepper motor
pulse.
control the movement of the PV system towards the light.
2. The motor has full torque at standstill (if the windings are
energized)
3. Precise positioning and repeatability of movement since
good stepper motors have an accuracy of 3 – 5% of a step and
this error is non-cumulative from one step to the next.
4. Excellent response to starting/ stopping/reversing.
5. Very reliable since there are no contact brushes in the
motor. Therefore, the life of the motor is simply dependent on
the life of the bearing.
6. The motors response to digital input pulses provides open-
Fig. 4: The power supply schematic diagram
loop control, making the motor simpler and less costly to
control.
7. It is possible to achieve very low speed synchronous
rotation with a load that is directly coupled to the shaft.
8. A wide range of rotational speeds can be realized as
the speed is proportional to the frequency of the

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DOI: 10.46300/9104.2020.14.21 Volume 14, 2020

C. System Implementation
Figures 9,10 show the implemented system hardware. Fig.
8 shows the microcontroller Board used to control the tracker
system, while the whole system is illustrated in Fig.9

Fig. 5: The lighting sensor schematic diagram.

Fig. 8: the microcontroller Board.

Fig. 6: Schematic diagram of the stepper motor drive circuit

B. Software Program
Flowchart of the software program is illustrated in the Fig. 7,
which shows also the detailed flowchart. This flowchart is
converted to assembly.

LE
Fig. 9: the tracking control system.

V. RESULTS
The power resulting against time characteristic (C/C) is
shown in Fig.10, indicate that there is an overall increase of
output energy about 25% for the two-axis MPP tracking
system compared to the fixed PV system as shown in Fig.11.
The tracking mechanism can track the sun according to the
direction of beam propagation of solar radiation and it has a
provision. in the software for adjustment of the system in case
Fig. 7: The Control program flowchart
of seasonal variation if necessary. The power. Consumption.
by the system is very low because of low energy consumption
devices are used like as COMS digital IC’s and other low

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DOI: 10.46300/9104.2020.14.21 Volume 14, 2020

power consuming solid-state electronic components. Also, [2] G. AlLee and W. Tschudi, “Edison redux: 380 Vdc brings
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Fig. 10: Power-Time variation of Normal and MPPT.
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