Techno-Environmental Feature-based Sun Tracking Model: Fabrication & Optimal Analyses by Precise Position Algorithm

A hardware model of a solar tracker has been developed to explore different technical and environmental aspects to generate maximum power. The proposed model consists of a dual-axis structure, whose operation is based on maximum solar irradiance for a specific location. Three modes of operation differing in the degree of freedom of axes movement were tested using two distinct control strategies. Further, different tilt angles were considered for this study. The software platform used to operate the hardware model is Arduino Pro Mini. To analyse the effect of the above approaches on the output voltage and to further assess the implications on the all-day efficiency and cost, an in-house computer code written in the C programming language is used as the basic controller. The code interfaced with Arduino UNO. The Precise Position Algorithm was implemented to improve the utilization of solar rays further. The single-axis tracker harnessed 25% less power than the dual-axis tracker, while the fixed-axis tracker captured 51% less. Tilting the axis at an angle of 28o degrees provided the maximum power. The use of the Precise Position Algorithm resulted in 11% more all-day power and 40% more efficiency than the C programmingbased Arduino UNO