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The design of DC motor driver for solar tracking applications

Conference Paper · September 2012

DOI: 10.1109/SMElec.2012.6417207

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 The Design of DC Motor Driver for Solar Tracking
System
Zi-Yi, Lam, Member, IEEE, Sew-Kin, Wong, Member, IEEE, Wai-Leong, Pang, Chee-Pun, Ooi
Faculty of Engineering (FOE)
Multimedia University, Persiaran Multimedia
63100 Cyberjaya, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
Email: [email protected] (corresponding author), [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract - Solar trackers rely on a direct-current (DC) motor

driver circuit to control the movement of the solar panel.
However, conventional DC motor drivers used in solar tracking
system do not provide any options for speed and torque control.
Hence, the fixed speed of the DC motor leads to either too fast or
too slow tracking movement. Usually, the output torque is set to
the maximum. If the load (solar panels’ weight) is small, the
maximum torque is not fully utilized and therefore energy is
wasted. So, a fully adjustable DC motor driver for solar tracking
system shows great potential in commercialization because highly
energy efficient DC motor driver circuit can improves the total
efficiency of the solar tracker. Fewer solar panels are needed
when they are attached to high efficiency solar tracking system, Fig.1. Block diagram of motor driver
which will be reflected to lower system cost. Therefore, this
enhanced motor driver will bring significant impact to the solar However, the system reported has single speed only without
energy industry. The proposed DC motor driver is fully torque control. System proposed by V. Gupta managed to
adjustable in term of speed and torque. The speed and torque of control the torque by changing the duty cycle of Pulse Width
the motor is directly proportional to the output voltage and Modulation (PWM) signal that feed into the low-side
output current of the proposed DC motor driver, respectively. switching elements of the H-bridge circuit [5]. The proposed
Adaptive controlling of the output voltage and current are DC motor driver shows that it is possible to make both speed
possible by installing algorithm in the microcontroller of the DC
motor driver and it can be reprogrammed according to the
and torque adjustable. It brings great advantage to the solar
requirement. The speed control makes the solar tracking system tracking system as the tracking speed can be optimized
to track the Sun more accurately and the torque control saves according to the tracking condition. Moreover, power
energy. consumption of the tracking system can be reduced greatly
since the DC motor driver supplies the amount of torque just
I. INTRODUCTION sufficient to move solar panels attached. An addition current
limiting circuit has been added in the motor driver in order to
Solar tracking system is used to track the position of sun in limit the maximum amount of current that can flow through
order to get the maximum energy by aligned the solar panel the DC motor to avoid motor stall. Fig. 1 shows the block
perpendicular to the incidence sunlight [1, 2, 3, 12, 13]. Solar diagram of the proposed DC motor driver.
panels need to move along with the direction of sunlight
during the tracking process. A DC motor driver is needed to II. CIRCUIT DESIGN AND DESCRIPTION
control the directions as well as the turning speed of the solar
panel. The maximum torque of the DC motor decides the total A. Characteristic of DC motor
amount of solar panels can be mounted on the tracking system. The characteristic of a DC motor is govern by the equation
The common limitation of the DC motor driver is the speed is (1):
fixed and the default torque is set to maximum. Logically, it is E A = V A- I AR A (1)
not preferable to set the motor in high turning speed since Sun Where VA is the applied voltage across the DC motor, IA is the
tracking is a slow process. While setting the motor to operate armature current, RA is the armature resistance and EA is the
at maximum torque causes the system to consume the highest internal generated voltage. In normal operating condition, the
amount of power constantly, regardless of the amount of load armature current will increase with the applied voltage and the
attached. It will bring significant impact on the efficiency of internal generated voltage remains constant. Turning speed of
the system, since the energy consumed by the system is motor is directly proportional with internal generated voltage,
generated by the solar panel itself. Research has been done showing in the equation (2) [6, 14, 15]:
that DC-DC buck converter is used to step down the voltage in EA = Køw (2)
order to reduce the turning speed of solar panel [4].
 Where ø is magnetic flux, w is the turning speed of DC
motor and K is a constant.
The proposed DC motor driver limits the amount of current
flowing into the motor. In other words, it can maintains the
armature current at a constant value although applied voltage
increased. When the armature current remains constant, the
internal generated voltage and therefore the turning speed will
increase propotional to the voltage applied. Torque is directly
proportional with the armature current, so the ability in
controlling the armature current made torque control possible,
as shown in the equation (3) [7]:
τinduced = KøIA (3) Fig. 2. DC-DC buck converter circuit
Where τinduced is the induced torque, ø is magnetic flux, IA is
armature current and K is a constant. Whereas changing the D. Current Limiting Circuit
flow direction of current across the DC motor will change the Current limiter circuit is used to limit the current flowing
turning direction of the DC motor [8]. through. This circuit is added right after the power supply to
the H-bridge circuit to prevent the motor being stalled and
B. Speed Control of DC Motor protect the MOSFET. As shown in the data sheet of the DC
The voltage across the DC motor must be step down by motor, the stalled current is 3A. So the design of this current
using the DC-DC buck converter in order to reduce the turning limiting circuit is to limit the current that above 3A as shown
speed of the solar panel to get accurate sun tracking. Fig. 2 in Fig. 4. Basically, this circuit consists of two op-amps. U1 as
shows the circuit of DC-DC buck converter. M1 is P12PF06 differential amplifier which is use to amplified the voltage
P-channel MOSFET as the switching element and M2 is drop across the sense resistor (Rs) since the Rs is very small
IRF630 N-channel MOSFET as a driver to drive the P-channel and the voltage across it is also very small. U2 used as a
MOSFET. Since PIC microcontroller cannot produce a comparator to compare the input voltage with the reference
negative voltage to turn on the P-channel MOSFET directly. voltage. If the current flow across is too high, which means
Therefore, the N-channel MOSFET is use to turn on the P- that the output voltage of U1 is higher than the reference
channel MOSFET. The relationship between the input voltage voltage, there will be output coming out from U2 and turn on
and the output voltage of the DC-DC buck converter are given the transistor Q1. As Q1 being turn on, the PWM signal will
by [9]: be grounded instead of feed into the MOSFET of H-bridge. So
Vo = DVin (4) there will be no current flowing through the MOSFET as well
Where Vo is the output voltage, Vin is input voltage and D is as the motor. It prevents the motor being stalled, protect the
the duty cycle of PWM signal. The output voltage can be step MOSFET and saves the current consumption.
down by vary the duty cycle of the PWM signal that feed into
M2.

C. Torque and Direction Control of DC Motor

Fig. 3 shows the H-bridge circuit. M1 and M2 are P12PF06
P-channel MOSFET as the high-side switching elements. M3
and M4 are IRF630 N-channel MOSFET as the low-side
switching elements. Another two IRF630 N-channel MOSFET,
M5 and M6 are needed as the driver to turn on the M1 and M2.
The torque of the motor can be controlled by control the
current flow through the motor as the torque is directly
proportional to the current across it. This can be adjust by vary
the duty cycle of PWM signal which feed into M5 or M6.
Base on [10], increase the drain to source voltage (Vds), will
increase the drain current (Id) of the MOSFET as well.
Changing the duty cycle of PWM signal will change the
average output voltage which is known as Vgs, when there are
changes in Vgs, Id which is the current that flow through the
motor will change as well. This is how the torque of the motor
being controlled. Fig. 3. H-bridge circuit using power MOSFET
 Fig. 5. Speed of motor when output voltage varies

Fig. 4. Current limiting circuit.

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The revolution per minutes (rpm) of the DC motor is

measured by using the digital stroboscope tachometer every
time there are changes in output voltage. Fig. 5 shows the
speed of DC motor changed with the output voltage of the
driver. The results show that the driver manged to control the Fig. 6. Output power when speed of motor varies
motor speed in a linear manner. Fig 6 shows the changes of
the driver output power corresponding to various speed of the
motor. As the speed of motor increase, the output power will
remain closed to 5W. Which means that the driver output
power has the ability to remain constant throughout the speed
range. This characteristic enables the motor to turn slowly
without lossing power, which is very important in promoting
higher efficiency of solar tracking.
Current flow through the motor is measured under two
conditions, i.e. with load and without load. The shaft of the
DC motor is attached with weight of 130 grams as a load. Fig.
7 shows the relationship between the driver output current and
duty cycle when there is a load attached. The results showed
that the driver managed to control the output current linearly,
and therefore the torque by using PWM control signal. This
enables the solar tracking system to work properly later on Fig. 7. Ouput current changes with the duty cycle when load is attached
when there is a need to mount more solar panels on it. When
there is no load mounted on the motor, the driver only
consume current maximum at 0.05A throughout the duty cycle
range as shown in Fig. 8. Most of the time, solar tracking
system is installed in a remote rural area where power grid is
nowhere to be found. This will be a very important power
saving feature that helps in conserving the energy stored in the
battery bank and allows the system to work in longer hours per
full-charge cycle.
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