GOVERNMENT AUTONOMOUS COLLEGE

ROURKELA
PANPOSH-769004

SEMINAR REPORT
ON
AUTOMATIC SUN TRACKING
SYSTEM

BY: - PRASANT KUMAR MAHATO

ROLL: - 18 ETC 016
BSc 2ND Year
ELECTRONICS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS
 1. ABSTRACT
Automatic Sun Tracking System is a hybrid hardware/software prototype, which automatically
provides best alignment of solar panel with the sun, to get maximum output (electricity).
Energy crisis is the most important issue in today’s world. Conventional energy resources are
not only limited but also the prime culprit for environmental pollution. Renewable energy
resources are getting priorities in the whole world to lessen the dependency on conventional
resources. Solar energy is rapidly gaining the focus as an important means of expanding
renewable energy uses. Solar cells those convert sun’s energy into electrical energy are costly
and inefficient. Different mechanisms are applied to increase the efficiency of the solar cell to
reduce the cost. Solar tracking system is the most appropriate technology to enhance the
efficiency of the solar cells by tracking the sun. A microcontroller based design methodology
of an automatic solar tracker is presented in this paper. Light dependent resistors are used as
the sensors of the solar tracker. The designed tracker has precise control mechanism which
will provide three ways of controlling system. A small prototype of solar tracking system is
also constructed to implement the design methodology presented here. We all are familiar with
the Solar Panel : Newton’s corpuscular theory of light, that light is made up of small particles
called “corpuscles” which travel in straight line with a finite velocity and energy. According
to U.S. Solar research centre:

“If we convert the Total Solar energy reaches to earth in one time into Electricity, then
it will be more enough than the whole power used by all the nations per year.”

Keywords: Microcontroller, RS232, Sun Tracking, Control Unit, Database.

 2. INTRODUCTION
In remote areas the sun is a cheap source of electricity because instead of hydraulic generators
it uses solar cells to produce electricity. While the output of solar cells depends on the intensity
of sunlight and the angle of incidence. It means to get maximum efficiency; the solar panels1
must remain in front of sun during the whole day. But due to rotation of earth those panels
can’t maintain their position always in front of sun. This problem results in decrease of their
efficiency. Thus to get a constant output, an automated system is required which should be
capable to constantly rotate the solar panel. The Automatic Sun Tracking System (ASTS) was
made as a prototype to solve the problem, mentioned above. It is completely automatic and
keeps the panel in front of sun until that is visible. The unique feature of this system is that
instead of taking the earth as its reference, it takes the sun as a guiding source. Its active sensors
constantly monitor the sunlight and rotate the panel towards the direction where the intensity
of sunlight is maximum. In case the sun gets invisible e.g. in cloudy weather, then without
tracking the sun the ASTS keeps rotating the solar panel in opposite direction to the rotation
of earth. But its speed of rotation is same as that of earth’s rotation. Due to this property when
after some time e.g. half an hour when the sun again gets visible, the solar panel is exactly in
front of sun. Moreover the system can manage the errors and also provides the error messages
on the LCD display. In manual mode, through the software (GUI) at computer, the solar panel
can be rotated at any desired angle.

STRUCTURE OF ASTS

ASTS is a hybrid hardware/software project. Its general structural diagram is shown in figure.

The software includes:

• VB 6.0 based GUI.

• Microsoft Access database.

• Embedded Software (written in C) for microcontroller AT89c52.

The hardware includes:

• Solar panel assembly structure containing six functional sensors, stepper motor and
solar cells.

• System Control Unit containing LCD, Keypad, Error Indicators and Emergency Stop
switch.

• Complete PCB containing two microcontrollers (89c52). First one is the “Master
Microcontroller” which controls the automatic operation of ASTS. While second one,
the “Slave Microcontroller” serially communicates (RS232) with VB software in
computer.

PROTOTYPE OF AUTOMATIC SOLAR TRACKER

Development of solar panel tracking system has been ongoing for several years. As the sun
moves across the sky during the day, it is advantageous to have the solar panels track the
location of the sun, such that the panels are always perpendicular with the position of the sun.
Available solar trackers in the market are much costly to integrate with solar panel system. In
the developing countries where cost is one of the major issues to integrate technologies, solar
tracking prototype presented at this paper can provide an effective solution.

The major components those are used in the prototype are given below:-

• Photo resistor

• Microcontroller

• Stepper motor
A. Photo resistor
Cadmium sulphide (CdS) photo resistor is used in the designed prototype. The CdS
photo resistor is a passive element that has a resistance inversely proportional to the
amount of light incident on it. To utilize the photo resistor, it is placed in series with
another resistor. A voltage divider is thus formed at the junction between photo resistor
and another resistor; the output is taken at the junction point to pass the measured voltage
as input to microcontroller. Fig. 2 represents the resistance value of the photo resistor
with the illumination of light. Fig. 2 Resistance value of CdS at various illumination
level of light Fig. 3 shows the schematic diagram of the prototype designed in Proteus
7 professional software. Fig. 3 Schematic of solar tracker circuitry In the solar tracker
prototype, it is desired that output voltage at junction point will increase as the light
intensity increases and so the photo resistor is placed at the top position in series
connection with resistor.
B. Stepper motor
Stepper motors are commonly used in precision positioning control applications. Five
characteristics of the stepper motor have been considered while choosing stepper motor
for the solar tracker prototype. Stepper motor is brushless, load independent, has open
loop positioning capability, good holding torque and excellent response characteristics.
The stepper motor that has been used in the prototype has the specifications of 24 volts,
130 Ω resistance, 7.5˚per step, 4 phase, unipolar. Half stepping rotation is considered
for the tracker to control position accurately with sun’s rotation which results in 3.75˚per
step.
C. Microcontroller
The ATMEGA32 microcontroller has been used in the prototype. Microcontroller is the
heart of overall system. ATMEGA32 microcontroller requires a 5 volt regulated voltage
supply. ‘7805’ voltage regulator is used to provide fixed 5 volts supply to the
microcontroller. ATMEGA32 has some features such as analog comparator (AC),
analog to digital converter (ADC), universal synchronous asynchronous receiver
transmitter (USART), times etc.
 3. TYPES OF ASTS
 SINGLE AXIS SOLAR TRACKER
It can either have a horizontal or vertical axle. The horizontal type is used in
tropical regions where the sun gets very high at noon, but the days are short. The
vertical type is used in high altitudes (such as in UK) where the sun does not get
very high, but summer days can be very long.

 DOUBLE AXIS SOLAR TRACKERS

It can have both a horizontal and a vertical axle and so can track the Suns
apparent motion exactly anywhere in the world. This type of system is used to
control astronomical telescopes, and so there is plenty of software available to
automatically predict and track the motion of the sun across the sky. Dual axis
trackers track the sun both East to West and North to South for added power
output (approx40% gain) and convenience.

4. WORKING OF ASTS
3.1 Basic Principle

The basic functional blocks of this system are six sensors 1 , and their operation depends upon
the intensity of light falling on solar panel. All sensors (each with different functionality) send
their output to microcontroller AT89c52. Then the microcontroller executes predefined task in
its software. These sensors are being used with following names and functionality:

3.1.1 Sun Tracking Sensors (STS)

These two sensors are mounted in “V” shape exactly in the middle of the solar panel. The
automatic sun tracking is accomplished according to following 3-step diagram.
 • Step-1 shows that when the sun is in front of solar panel, both sensors i.e. STS-1 and
STS-2 are getting same amount of light.

• In step-2, after some time as the earth rotates the solar panel gets repositioned with
respect to sun and STS-1 obtains less amount of light. At this point the LDR i.e. STS-1
sends signal to the microcontroller. Then the controller1 rotates motor, resulting the
rotation of solar panel towards the sun.

• Finally step-3 shows the reorientation of solar panel. The process continues until the
end of day.

Interface of LDR with microcontroller

3.1.2 Night Time Fault Detector (NTFD)

In routine work of the system if a general fault2 occurs during night time then the next morning
it would not work. So at the next sunrise, this sensor detects whether the solar panel is ready
for tracking or not. As shown in figure-4, the NTFD is mounted in east of the solar panel so in
normal conditions it does not work because it gets lesser intense light (predefined) as compared
to the middle sensors i.e. STS-1 and STS-2, but as the fault arises, it starts working.

3.1.3 Day Time Fault Detector (DTFD)

Except some special conditions e.g. cloudy weather etc., the ASTS is supposed to track the sun
the whole day. If the panel stops rotation then DTFD detects this type of fault. The mounting
strategy of this sensor is same as that of NTFD except that it is mounted in the west.
3.1.4 Night and Cloud Detection

In a cloudy day light intensity is less than a normal day. Similarly during night, light intensity
is far less than a cloudy day. So the night and cloud sensors work on this principle to detect
the event. To sense a smaller change in light intensity cloud sensor is more sensitive than the
Night sensor.

In case of Night event, the microcontroller stops all operations of the system and repositions
the solar panel towards east to track the sun for next morning.

A. Normal day light condition

Two photo resistors are used in the solar tracker to compare the output voltages from
two junctions. As the sun rotates from east to west in the day time, AIN0 needs to
provide higher voltage than AIN1 to sense the rotation of the sun (Fig. 6). This condition
is considered as normal day light condition and tracker rotates the panel 3.75˚ after every
15 minutes.
B. Bad weather condition
When the sky gets cloudy, there will be less striking of light on both the photo resistors
and so sufficient voltages might not be available at junction point. The difference of
voltage at junction point will not be greater than the threshold value to rotate the tracker.
At the mean time, sun continues rotating in the western direction. To solve this problem,
a short delay is provided which will check for voltage input from junction point in every
1.5 minutes. Microcontroller will use the variable Count to check for consecutively 10
times to make the ‘wait’ state equal to 15 minutes (moderate delay) to rotate the stepper
motor one step.
C. Bidirectional rotation
At day time, the solar tracker will rotate in only one direction from east to west. Variable
I will count the total rotation in day time and that is approximately calculated as 40
rotations considering 150˚ rotation. When the sun sets, no more rotation is needed in
western direction. For the next day, the solar panel needs to go to the initial position in
the morning to track the sun’s position again. To do so, the variable I that counts the
number of rotation in the day time will work out.
When the variable (I) shows value greater than 40, the tracker stops rotating in the
western direction and rotates reversely in the eastern direction to set the tracker to the
328 initial position for the next day. When it goes to initial position, power supply to the
tracker will be turned off and the tracker will be in stand by till sunlight in the next
morning.

SOLAR TRACKING WORKING MECHANSM

 5. CONTROL STRATEGY OF ASTS
For a successful operation, the ASTS has two types of control approach:

• Automatic Control

• Manual Control

4.1. Automatic Control

With the help of an efficient algorithm (written in C) only one Master Microcontroller1
is being used to manage the automatic operation of ASTS. This controller has following
functions:

• Senses all of six sensors.

• Drives stepper motor.

• Drives LCD.

• Controls the warning indicators e.g. buzzer, LED’s etc.

• Communicates (by parallel port) with the slave microcontroller.

The central driving components of automatic control are only six sensors. Their operation has
been explained on the previous page.

a. Manual Control
As no human made system is so perfect so an unpredictable fault may occur in the any
system. That is why a manual control option was also kept in ASTS. While designing
this part of control two objectives were kept in mind:
• The manual control should work efficiently.
• It should be as user friendly as possible.

Following two approaches have been used to accomplish the manual control.

• Stand Alone system control Unit

• Computer based control unit
 i. Stand Alone System Control
Unit it is a simple user interface, which includes on-board LCD, Keypad, Buzzer and
a complete PCB of the system circuit. The LCD (Hitachi HD44780) displays
different messages, which can help the user in manually operating the system. While
the keypad includes keys of Numeric Digits, Emergency Stop, clock wise rotation
and counter clockwise rotation. Using keypad a user can manually rotate the solar
panel by entering angle from 0o to 180◦. The angle value is limited to only 180 values
because after sunrise, the earth almost rotates only 180 degrees and then the sun
disappears. The advantage of this unit is that to run the system it does not need
computer but its disadvantage is that at a time it controls only one solar panel.

ii. Computer Based Control Unit

This is completely software based control, written in VB 6.0. It incorporates a GUI
(figure-6) and a Database, linked with Microsoft Access. Using this software the
computer serially communicates (RS232) with the ASTS. The Slave microcontroller
(89c51) of the system makes this communication successful. Due to some fault if the
solar panel stops rotating, then with the help of this software a user can:
• Rotate the solar panel manually.
• Stop all operations of ASTS (in emergency case)
The database of this system can be used to keep records, which can be retrieved even
after a long time. While saving the new data, the database automatically takes the
date and time from the computer and keeps them saved along with the data, entered
by the human being. The advantages of computer-based control include:
• Facility of Database.
• At a time this software can handle three ASTS systems.
• It has an attracting GUI.
FEATURES & FUTURE WORK OF THE SOLAR TRACKER

While developing the overall system, hardware and software portions of the project are
separated into stages consisting of light detection, microcontroller input, software
enhancements, motor driving and finally dummy panel rotation. The attractive feature of
the constructed prototype is the software solution of many challenges regarding solar
tracking system. The designed prototype requires only two photo resistors to sense the light,
which lessens the cost of the system. Power consumption of the system is negligible as
‘wait’ states are calculated perfectly with the sun’s position. Another major problem of
system initialization at the start of the day is solved through a simple programming
application. All these software based solution reduce the system cost far more than all other
systems proposed to date. As the prototype is a miniature of main system, it has some
limitations which can be mitigated through future developments. In stead of solar panel, a
small plastic board is rotated in the system. As a miniature system, it works out well. Solar
panel must be integrated with the system to prepare result and cost analysis. CdS photo
resistors which have been used in the prototype have a better response on 500nm to 700nm
of wave length [14]. As shown in Fig. 7, sunlight covers greater ranges than CdS photo
resistors [15]. Hence more sensitive photo diodes should be used for wider range of
sensitivity.
 6. CONCLUSION
Although ASTS is a prototype towards a real system, but still its software and hardware
can be used to drive a real and very huge solar panel. A small portable battery can drive its
control circuitry. Therefore by just replacing the sensing instrument, its algorithm and
control system can be used in RADAR and moveable Dish Antennas.

FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS

Many modifications especially in hardware of ASTS are planned:

• The computer and System Control Unit would have a wireless communication with
the mechanical structure of solar panel.

• More sensitive sensors would be used.

• To make emergency control better more powerful microcontrollers e.g. PIC 16F877A
would be used.

• To reprogram the PIC microcontroller a wireless boot loader would be used.

FINANCIAL COST The cost of the end product (ASTS) may vary from country to
country but in Pakistan, it costs almost US$- 170, excluding the price of compiler and
programmer of microcontroller.

DEVELOPMENT TOOLS

1. Software

 KEIL C Compiler (for 8051 microcontroller family).

 VB 6.0
 Microsoft Access
2. Hardware

• SUPERPRO L+ Universal Microcontroller Programmer

 7. REFERENCES
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