‘ Automatic Solar Tracker’

A thesis report submitted to the department of mechanical and

production Engineering (MPE), Islamic University of
Technology (IUT)

Prepared by :

Abdoul-Enziz Imamou (160010004)

Mohamadou Moustapha (160010008)

Supervised By : Mr Nagib Mehfuz

0
Dedication:
To
Nenne Hawawou
&
Imamou Hassani

1
 CERTIFICATE OF RESEARCH

This thesis title ‘Automatic solar tracker’ submitted by Abdoul-

Enziz Imamou (160010004) and Mohamadou Moustapha
(160010008) has been accepted as satisfactory in partial
fulfilment of the requirement for Higher Diploma in
Mechanical and Chemical Engineering.

Approved by:

………………………………………………………….
Prof.Dr Md.Zahid Hossain
Head of the department
Mechanical and Production Engineering (MPE)
Islamic university of Technology (IUT)
Board. Bazar Gazipur-1704

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 CANDITATE’S DECLARATION

We hereby declare that the project report entitled ‘AUTOMATIC

SOLAR TRACKEER’ submitted by us to the department of
Mechanical and Production Engineering at ISLAMIC
UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY , is a record project work
carried out by us under the guidance of Mr Nagib Mehfuz. We
further declared that this thesis or any part of it has not been
submitted elsewhere for the award of any degree or diploma.

……………………………………………… ………….…..……………………………

Abdoul-Enziz imamou Mohamadou Moustapha

Student ID: 160010004 Student ID: 160010008

Supervised By :

………………………………………………
Nagib Mehfuz
Lecturer of the department
Mechanical and Production Engineering (MPE)
Islamic university of Technology (IUT)
Board. Bazar Gazipur-1704

3
Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 7

Chapter 2 : Theory .................................................................................................................................. 9
2.1 Photovoltaic technology................................................................................................................ 9
2.2 Solar Tracking system................................................................................................................. 10
2.3.Two axis solar tracking ............................................................................................................... 12
2.4: Schematic arrangement .............................................................................................................. 13
2.5 The sensing element and signal processing ................................................................................ 14
2.6 Functionality and mechanism of the system ............................................................................... 14
Chapter 3: Method ................................................................................................................................ 15
3.1 Hardware ..................................................................................................................................... 16
3.1.1 Light dependent resistor (LDR) ........................................................................................... 16
3.1.2 Solar panel ........................................................................................................................... 17
3.1.3. Servo motor ......................................................................................................................... 18
3.1.4. Arduino ............................................................................................................................... 19
3.2 . Software .................................................................................................................................... 20
3.3. Circuit Diagram ......................................................................................................................... 22
3.4. Setup .......................................................................................................................................... 23
3.5 solar tracker system descriptions ................................................................................................ 26
3.5.1 Mechanical structures .......................................................................................................... 26
3.5.2 Electrical system .................................................................................................................. 27
3.6 complete proposed automatic solar tracker ................................................................................. 28
Chapter 4: Result and Discussion ......................................................................................................... 29
Chapter 5: Conclusion........................................................................................................................... 30
References ............................................................................................................................................. 31

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 ACKNOWLEGEMENT

‘It is not possible to prepare a project report without the assistance &
encouragement of other people. This one is certainly no exception.’

On the very outset of this report, we would like to express my sincere &
heartfelt obligation towards all the personages who have helped us in this
endeavour. Without their active guidance, help, cooperation and
encouragement, we will not have made headway in the project.

We are ineffably indebted to our supervisor Mr Nagib Mehfuz for

conscientious guidance and encouragement to accomplish this project.

We are extremely thankful and pay our gratitude to our faculty teachers for their
valuable guidance and support on completion of this project in its presently.

We also acknowledge with a deep sense of reverence, our gratitude towards our
parents and member of our families, who have always supported us morally as
well as economically.

At last but not least gratitude goes to all of our friends who directly or indirectly
helped us to complete this project.

Any omission in this brief acknowledges does not mean lack of gratitude.

Thanking You

Abdoul-Enziz Imamou
&
Mohamadou Moustapha

5
Abstract:

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 in
important means of expanding renewable energy uses. The energy
extracted from solar photovoltaic (PV) or solar thermal depends on
solar insulation. For the extraction of maximum energy from the sun,
simple tracking solar system using servo motors and light dependent
sensors has been developed. A microcontroller is based designed
based design technology of an automatic solar tracker is presented in
this work. Sun trackers move the solar collector to follow the sun
trajectories and keep the orientation of the solar collector at an
optimal tilt angle.
In this work, two axis solar tracking has been implemented through
microcontroller. This method is increasing power collection
efficiency by developing a device that tracks the sun to keep the panel
at a right angle to its rays.

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Chapter 1: Introduction

Nowadays, climate change on globe is at a critical level. Global

warming or climate changes can be seen through some of them
natural phenomenon like the effect on crops and extreme weather
conditions around the world. Renewable-energy is an energy which
comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and
geothermal heat, which are renewable (naturally replenished). Solar
energy is rapidly advancing as an important means of renewable
energy resource in many applications like thermal energy storage
systems and electric power generation systems. As the demand of
electricity keeps increasing by years, solar energy is the alternative for
those electricity problems. Solar energy is the energy derived from the
sun through the form of solar radiation. The sun is the most
inexhaustible, renewable source of energy known to man. Solar
energy provides light, heat and energy to all living things. There is no
price and also no air pollution created by solar energy,
environmentally friendly and the solar energies are interminable
supplies. By using solar arrays, a series of solar cells electrically
connected, a DC voltage is generated which can be physically used on
a load. Solar arrays or panels are being used increasingly as
efficiencies reach higher levels, and are especially popular in remote
areas where placement of electricity lines is not economically viable.
The average solar energy intercepted by a fixed collector, during the
whole day, is less than maximum attainable. This is due to the static

7
placement of the collector which limits their area of exposure to direct
solar radiation. More energy can be extracted in a day, if the solar
collector is installed on a tracker, with an actuator that follows the sun
like a sunflower. Usually, the single-axis tracker follows the sun’s
east-west movement while two-axis tracker also follows the sun’s
altitude angle. If a flat solar panel is mounted on level ground, it is
obvious that over the course of the day the sunlight will have an angle
of incidence close to 90° in the morning and the evening. At such an
angle, the light gathering ability of the cell is essentially zero,
resulting in no output. As the day progresses to midday, the angle of
incidence approaches 0°, causing a steady increase in power until at
the point where the light incident on the panel is completely
perpendicular, and maximum power is achieved. From this
background, we see the need to maintain the maximum power output
from the panel by maintaining an angle of incidence as close to 0° as
possible. By tilting the solar panel to continuously face the sun, this
can be achieved. This process of sensing and following the position of
the sun is known as Solar Tracking. It was resolved that real-time
tracking would be necessary to follow the sun effectively, so that no
external data would be required in operation.

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Chapter 2 : Theory
2.1 Photovoltaic technology

The principle of operation of a PV cell is shown in Fig 2.1. The most

abundant and convenient source of renewable energy is solar energy,
which can be harnessed by photovoltaic cells. Photovoltaic cells are
the basic of the solar system. The word photovoltaic comes from
“photo” means light and “voltaic” means producing electricity.
Therefore, the photovoltaic process is “producing electricity directly
from sunlight”. The output power of a photovoltaic cell depends on
the amount of light projected on the cell. Time of the day, season,
panel position and orientation are also the factors behind the output
power. The current-voltage and power-voltage characteristics of a
photovoltaic cell are shown in Fig 2.2. Photovoltaic cells are the
smallest part of a solar panel. Solar panel gives maximum power
output at the time when sun is directly aligned with the panel.

Fig 2.1. Principle of photovoltaic cell [1]

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 Fig 2.2: Curve of solar panel [2]

2.2 Solar Tracking system

Solar tracking is a widely-applied proven technology that increases

energy production by directing or concentrated the photovoltaic to
track the sun on its path from dawn until dusk. Instantaneous solar
radiation collected by the photovoltaic modules, assembled in a
tracking system, is higher than the critical irradiance level for a longer
number of hours than in fixed systems. There are numerous types of
solar trackers, of varying costs, performance and sophistication. There
are static solar panels, single-axis and dual-axis solar tracker as shown
in Fig.2.3.
A single-axis solar tracking system uses a tilted PV panel mount, and
a single electric motor to move the panel on an approximate trajectory
relative to the Sun’s position. It has been estimated that the yield from
solar panels can be increased by 30 - 60 % by utilizing a tracking
system instead of a stationary array. Up to 40% extra power can be
produced per annum using a variable elevation solar tracker. In this

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work, the use of high efficiency is due to dual-axis solar tracker. This
work continues with specific design methodologies pertaining to
Light Dependent Resistor (LDR), servo motors, solar panel,
programme selection and a software/system operation. The paper
concludes with a discussion of results and future work. The dual-axis
tracker is a very compatible system to be developed with the usage of
Arduino as a programming platform. From the overall system, the
main controller received an analogue input from the Light Dependent
Resistor (LDR) and converts it into digital signal by Analogue-to-
Digital converter. The output given to the servo motor will determine
the movement of the solar panel.

Fig 2.3 : various types of solar tracker [3]

nbgbbnnmn

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2.3.Two axis solar tracking

On a long-term basis, the most solar energy can be obtained from a

given area of solar modules by having the modules mounted in a 2-
axis tracking system. In such a tracking system, the modules are
positioned such that the angle of incidence of incoming beam
radiation with the solar module is 900. Some systems use active
tracking methods, in which the motors and/or hydraulic devices are
used to position the modules, while others use passive methods, in
which normally unused energy, such as heating of a fluid, is used to
provide module alignment with the sun. In addition, some use sensors
with new techniques to find the solar disk in the sky which is our case
study, while others use computer programs that calculate the
astronomical position of the sun from well-known algorithms (solar
time-position calculations), and the calculations are used to control
motors and gears that align the solar collector with the solar disk.
Combinations of the various sub-systems are utilized in some tracking
systems. Because up to 90% of the solar radiation is beam radiation
sunny day, 2-axis tracking can provide a substantial gain in the solar
energy harvested.

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2.4: Schematic arrangement

Two-axis tracking system accommodates both degrees of freedom:

azimuth and altitude. Schematic block diagram of the proposed
automatic solar tracker is shown in the Fig:2.4.
Four LDRs sensors module are used and circuits are implemented in
both degrees of freedom. If one of the LDR gets more light intensity
than other, the microcontroller will receive a signal. And the
microcontroller analyzes this data and generates a signal to actuate the
motor, to move the sensor module to a position where equal light is
being illuminated on pair of LDRs . The arduino is programmed to
generate through azimuth as well as altitude tracking and motor
rotation either clockwise or anti-clockwise direction depending on the
shadow on the LDRs. If all the ten LDRs are equally illuminated by
the sun, then the microcontroller will not generate any signal to
actuate the motors. The signal generated by the microcontroller
causes to energize the driving circuit, for the movement of server
motor.

input Servo Output

LDR Arduino Motor
Uno

Fig. 2.4 Schematic block diagram

13
2.5 The sensing element and signal processing

To track the sun it is necessary to sense the position of the sun and for
that electro-optical sensor is needed. Ten LDRs have been used for
tracking the azimuth and altitude angle. If light falling on the device is
of high frequency, photons absorbed by the semiconductor gives
enough energy to bound electrons to jump into the conduction band.
The resulting free electron conducts electricity, thereby lowering the
resistance. In this work Ten LDRs are enough for providing the
complete view of the sky and two-axis tracking. Each LDR is placed
in series with a resistor of 100kΩ and Wheatstone bridge circuit is
formed using all ten LDRs and ten resistors. A voltage divider circuit
is formed at the respective node between LDR and a series resistor of
100kΩ. The LDR that detect the high intensity of light will send a
signal to the microcontroller and the microcontroller will generate a
signal that will cause the motor to rotate depending on the shadow of
the LDR.

2.6 Functionality and mechanism of the system

The LDR sensor is a variable resistor that changes the resistance

according to the intensity of incident ray illuminated onto it. As the
intensity of sunlight changes, the resistance and the voltage of LDR
Sensors change. The output voltage across the resistor is converted

14
Into digital signal at the input of the microcontroller. Based on the
output of the microcontroller the DC servo motor rotates clockwise
(CW) or counter clockwise (CCW).
The smart tracker panel in our project was installed with four LDRs
sensors. When the sunlight falls onto the PV panel, the LDR sensors
generate different voltages to move the PV panel.
The control unit is the intelligent part of the system. It consists of an
Arduino UNO based on Atmega328 which receive data sent by the
sensors. This data describe the sun presence sensors status, sun
position sensors and butted of race end status. The treatment of the
data by the control unit lets the later send the suitable control signals
towards the operative part.
The driving mechanism here is the servo motors. It was controlled
using the microcontroller which receives a signal from the LDRs and
the analogue voltage is converted into digital signal for processing.

Chapter 3: Method

The main intention of this project is to design a high quality solar

tracker. The project is divided into two parts: hardware and software.

15
3.1 Hardware

The main components of hardware in this project are solar panel,

Light Dependent Resistor (LDR), Servo Motor and Arduino-Based
Controller.

3.1.1 Light dependent resistor (LDR)

Photo resistor or light dependent resistor (LDR) showing in Fig 3.1 is

a resistor in which the resistance decreases with increasing incident
light intensity or exhibit photoconductivity. LDR output voltages for
light intensity are shown in Table 3.1. The resistance of an LDR is
extremely high, sometimes as high as 1 Mohms. The light resistances
will drop dramatically when illuminated.

Fig 3.1. Light Dependent Resistor

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Table 3.1: Light intensity measurement
Light intensity LDR output (v)
dark 0.6
average 4.0
bright 4.6

3.1.2 Solar panel

Solar panels are devices that convert light into electricity. They are
called "solar" panels because the most powerful source of light
available is the sun. Fig 3.2 is a solar panel packaged, connected
assembly of photovoltaic cells. The solar panel can be used as a
component of a larger photovoltaic system to generate and supply
electricity in commercial and residential applications.

Fig 3.2. Solar Panel

17
3.1.3. Servo motor

A servo motor is an electrical device which can push or rotate an

object with great precision. It rotates an object at some specific angles
or distance. A servo motor showing in Fig 3.3 is just made up of
simple motor which run through servo mechanism. It can reach a very
high torque in a small and light weight packages. Due to these
features they are being used in many applications like Robotics,
machines, cars etc. A servo motor can usually only turn 900 in either
direction in for a total of 1800 movement. Servo motors are rated in
Kg/cm (kilogramme per centimetre). This Kg/cm tells how much
weight the servo motor can lift at a particular distance. The position of
a servo motor is decided by electrical pulse and its circuitry is placed
beside the motor.

Fig 3.3. Servo Motor

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3.1.4. Arduino

The Arduino Uno shown in Fig. 3.4 is a microcontroller board based

on the Atmega328. It has 14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can
be used as PWM outputs), 6 analogue inputs, a 16 MHz crystal
oscillator, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, and a
reset button. It contains everything needed to support the
microcontroller; simply connect it to a computer with a USB cable or
power it with an AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started. Arduino
Uno has open source software that is why it’s quiet easy to implement
control logics on this microcontroller board. Following table shows
some specification of the microcontroller board

Fig 3.4. Arduino UNO board

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Arduino features:

o Microcontroller: ATmega328
o Operating Voltage: 5V
o Input Voltage (recommended): 7-12V
o Input Voltage (limits): 6-20V
o Digital I/O Pins: 14 (of which 6 provide PWM output)
o Analogue Input Pins: 6
o DC Current per I/O Pin: 40 mA
o DC Current for 3.3V Pin: 50 mA
o Flash Memory: 32 KB (ATmega328) of which 0.5 KB used by
boot loader
o SRAM: 2 KB (ATmega328)
o EEPROM: 1 KB (ATmega328)

3.2 . Software

The software part consists of a programming language that is

constructed using C programming. The codes are targeted to Arduino
UNO to be compiled and uploaded. The flow of the software
procedure is shown in Fig 3.5.

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 Start

Initialize

Measure the value

difference of the LDR

If LDR 1 > The servo motor will

go Right
LDR 2,3,4,

The servo motor will

If LDR 2>> go up
LDR 1,3,4,
0,2,3

The servo motor will

If LDR 3>>
go Down
LDR 1,2,4,

The servo motor will go

If LDR 4>>
LDR 1,2,3, Left
bbb1,1110,
1,2

DARK?

End

Fig 3.5. Flowchart for the overall process

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3.3. Circuit Diagram

The circuit design of solar tracker is simple but setting up the system
must be done carefully. Four LDRs and four 100KΩ resistors are
connected in a voltage divider fashion and the output is giving to 4
Analogue input pins of Arduino. The PWM inputs of the two servo
motors are given from digital pins 9 and 10 of the Arduino. The
circuit diagram of this project is shown in Fig 3.6.

Fig 3.6: Circuit Diagram

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3.4. Setup
Step 1

 Take the placard and measure according to the design

 Cut the different part of the measured placard

 Cut four tubes which support the top and bottom plaque

 Sticks the different parts accordingly

Fig 3.7 : Tubes with top and bottom plaque base setup

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Step 2

 Hole the plaque to fix the servo motors

 Now connect the servo motors to the perforated holes

3.8 : Plaque hole and servo motors fixation

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Step 3
 Stick the solar panel to the plaque
 Stick the four LDRs to the plaque
 Fixe the plaque to the motor

3.9 : LDRs and solar panel fixation

Step 4
 Connect the LDRs with the wires
 Connect the servo motors and the LDRs to the breadboard
 Connect the servo motors and the breadboard to the arduino

25
 3.10 : LDRs and servo motors connection

Step 5
 Upload the code to the arduino Uno

3.5 solar tracker system descriptions

3.5.1 Mechanical structures
After the solar panels and other components were selected, the overall

structural design of the solar tracker as seen in Fig 3.7 . The

compactness of the proposed solar tracker enables it to be mounted

almost everywhere. It consists of the PV panel, the servo motors and

Arduino Uno and the vertical pillars with base plates support. The

pillars holding panel are aligned to the sides of the panel for better

flexibility during the panel rotation and the servo motors are mounted

in a such way the tracker system can rotates on a dual-axis freedom of

26
rotation. The sensors are fixed at the sides of the panel to obtain the

sun irradiance.

3.5.2 Electrical system

The overall mechanical and electrical subsystems were integrated into

the solar tracker system as shown in Fig 3.7. The block diagram of the
solar tracker system consists of mostly electrical components. The
solar tracker consists of the PV cells, and other subsystems such as
the LDR sensors, servo motors and the microcontroller. The LDR
sensors sense the sunlight intensity and send the signal to the
microcontroller to rotate the PV panel via the servo motor. The servo
motor was controlled using the microcontroller. The controller uses
the PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) signal to drive the servo motor at
a controlled speed correspond to a maximum voltage of 6 V. The
PWM wave is a continuous square wave signal that changes between
0 V and 6 V. The duration or width of the pulse determines the angle
of the shaft’s rotation. The microcontroller target board was used to
control the servo motor. It receives the signals from the LDR sensors.
The analogue voltage is converted into digital signal for processing.

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3.6 complete proposed automatic solar tracker

Fig 3.11: complete propose d automatic solar tracker.

28
Chapter 4: Result and Discussion

A solar tracker was proposed, designed and constructed. The final

design was successful, in that it achieved an overall power collection
efficiency increased to a fixed panel for the same panel on the
tracking device. the solar energy capture is maximized by a 2-axis
tracking system because the solar energy is greatest on cloud-free
days when there is ample direct sunshine, and response of a solar
module to a ray of light is proportional to the cosine of the angle
between a line perpendicular to the module surface and a direct solar
ray impinging on the surface. In terms of real value, this means that
the overall cost of a system can be reduced significantly, considering
that much more power can be supplied by the solar array coupled to a
solar tracking device. By extracting more power from the same solar
panel, the cost per watt is decreased, thereby rendering solar power
much more cost-effective than previously achieved using fixed solar
panels. A single axis tracker offers a great power increase over a fixed
solar panel, but a two-axis tracker would provide more power still.
This could be a subject for further development. Solar tracking is by
far the easiest method to increase overall efficiency of a solar power
system for use by domestic or commercial users.

29
Chapter 5: Conclusion

In this project, the sun tracking system is developed based on

microcontroller. The Arduino Uno is used in this system with a
minimum number of components and the use of DC servo motors
enables accurate tracking of the sun. It has been observed that the sun
tracking systems can collect maximum energy than a fixed panel
system and high efficiency is achieved through this tracker, it can be
said that the proposed sun tracking system is a feasible method of
maximizing the light energy received from sun. This is an efficient
tracking system for solar energy collection. The method implemented
in this project is simple, easy to maintain and requires no technical
attention for its operation. The software developed for this work is
easy to manipulate. The solar module with tracking system can collect
maximum energy over a static module. Hence implementation of this
technique in building solar systems will greatly improve utility
satisfaction.

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References

1. Vinodkumar P. More and Vikas V. Kulkarni , ‘ Design and Implementation of

Microcontroller Based Automatic Solar Radiation Tracker’ , International Journal of
Current Engineering and Technology ISSN 2277 – 4106 , ( April 2014)

2. .Dipti Bawa, C.Y. Patil, “Fuzzy control based solar tracker using Arduino Uno”,
International Journal of Engineering and Innovative Technology (IJEIT) Volume 2,
Issue 12, (June 2013)

3. Zolkapli, M. 1; AI-Junid S. A. M.; Othman Z.; Manut, A.; Mohd Zulkifli M. A.”
High-Efficiency Dual-Axis Solar Tracking Developement using Arduino” ,
International Conference on Technology, Informatics, Management, Engineering &
Environment (TIME-E 2013) Bandung, Indonesia , (June 23-26,2013 ).

4. J. Rizk, and Y. Chaiko , “Solar Tracking System: More Efficient Use of Solar Panels,
World Academy of Science”, Engineering and Technology 41, (2008).

5. Nelson A. Kelly , Thomas L. Gibson,”Improved photovoltaic energy output for

cloudy conditions with a solar tracking system”, General Motors R&D Center, 480-
106-269, Chemical & Environmental Sciences Laboratory, 30500 Mound Road,
Warren, MI 48090-9055, USA, (23 September 2009)

6. C.S. Chin, A. Babu , W. McBride, “Design, modeling and testing of a standalone

single axis active solar tracker using MATLAB/Simulink”, Renewable Energy,(2011)

7. Bajpai, Prabodh Kumar, Subhash , “Design, development and performance test of an

automatic two-axis solar tracker system”, Proceedings - 2011 Annual IEEE India
Conference: Engineering Sustainable Solutions, INDICON-2011, (2011)

8. Singh, Pravin Kumar, “Arduino Based Photovore Robot”, International Journal of

Scientific & Engineering Research, (2013)

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