20-09-2017, 04:42 PM
The renewable energy sector is rapidly gaining ground as a new growth area for many countries with the great potential it presents ecologically and economically. Solar energy plays an important role as a primary source of energy, especially for the rural area. This article presents the design and development of the Arduino high efficiency dual axis solar tracking system. In addition, the ultimate goal of this project is to track the maximum solar source to power the solar panel. The project is divided into two stages, which are the development of hardware and software. In hardware development, five light-dependent resistors (LDRs) have been used to capture the maximum light source. Two servo motors have been used to move the solar panel to the maximum location of the light source by LDR. In addition, the code is constructed using the C programming language and directed to the Arduino UNO controller. The efficiency of the system has been tested and compared to the static solar panel at various time intervals, and shows that the system reacts best at 10-minute intervals with a constant voltage generated. Therefore, the system has been tested working to capture the maximum source of sunlight for high efficiency solar utilization applications.