Open AccessEfficient and Low-Cost Arduino based Solar Tracking System
Author(s) -
Sohaib R. Awad,
Mamoon A. Al Jbaar,
Mohammed A. M. Abdullah
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
iop conference series. materials science and engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1757-899X
pISSN - 1757-8981
DOI - 10.1088/1757-899x/745/1/012016
Subject(s) - arduino , solar tracker , microcontroller , servomotor , solar energy , solar micro inverter , solar cell , photovoltaic system , computer science , electrical engineering , engineering , maximum power point tracking , computer hardware , embedded system , artificial intelligence , voltage , inverter
Sun energy plays an important role as a primary source of energy which can be harvested successfully using solar cells. The solar cell efficiency depends on the location of sun and its light intensity. Hence, solar tracking can be exploited to maximize the efficiency of solar panel. In this work, we developed a novel system of an inexpensive automatic microcontroller-based scaled down solar tracker using Arduino platform. Servo-motor is controlled by an Arduino Mega unit in order to re-orient the solar panel according to the position of sun with the help of light dependent resistors (LDR) and servomotors. A dual-axis solar tracker prototype is designed to maximize the harvested solar energy. Experimental results show that the proposed system performs 25% better than a fixed solar panel under the same conditions.