IOT BASED SOLAR TRACKING SYSTEM
T.Jeyapriya, E.Varadharajan
Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
Coimbatore Institute of Technology,Coimbatore,Tamil Nadu,India.
{[email protected], [email protected]}
Abstarct: Solar energy is fast becoming a very important means of
renewable energy resource. With solar tracking, it will become
II. PROJECT OBJECTIVE
possible to generate more energy since the solar panel can The project was carried out to satisfy two main objectives:
maintain a perpendicular profile to the rays of the sun. Even
though the initial cost of setting up the tracking system is
• Design a system that tracks the solar UV light for solar
considerably high, there are cheaper options that have been
panels.
proposed over time. The project describes the design and • To initimate the domestic users with the value of
construction of a prototype for solar tracking system that has a generated from solar energy.
single axis of freedom. Light Dependent Resistors (LDRs) are used
for sunlight detection. The control circuit is based on an III. METHODOLOGY
ATMega328P microcontroller in the Arduino board. It is
programmed to detect sunlight via the LDRs before actuating the The solar project is implemented using a stepper motor
stepper motor to position the solar panel. The solar panel is and LDRs. There is the embedded software section where the
positioned where it is able to receive maximum light. One of the Atmega 328P is programmed using the C language. The
ways to increase the efficiency of solar panels while reducing costs Arduino IDE was used for the coding. It is then used as a
is to use tracking. Through tracking, there will be increased standalone unit on a PCB during fabrication and display. The
exposure of the panel to the sun, making it have increased power design is limited to Single Axis tracking because the use of a
output. In addition to tracking the value of power generated is dual axis tracking system would not add much value. The
passed as a message to the domestic user with the help of Wi-fi design of input stage facilitates conversion of light into a
module as the proposed work of the project. voltage by the light dependent resistors, LDRs. There is
comparison of the two voltages, then the microcontroller uses
I. INTRODUCTION the difference as the error. The stepper motor uses this error to
rotate through a corresponding angle for the adjustment of the
Solar energy is clean and available in abundance. Solar position of the solar panel until such a time that the voltage
technologies use the sun for provision of heat, light and outputs in the LDRs are equal. The difference between the
electricity. These are for industrial and domestic applications. voltages of the LDRs is obtained as analog readings. The
With the alarming rate of depletion of depletion of major difference is transmitted to the stepper motor and it thus moves
conventional energy sources like petroleum, coal and natural to ensure the two LDRs are at equal inclination. This means
gas, coupled with environmental caused by the process of
they will be receiving the same amount of light. The procedure
harnessing these energy sources, it has become an urgent is repeated throughout the day. The value of power generated
necessity to invest in renewable energy sources that can power is passed on to the domestic user by the use of a wifi module.
the future sufficiently. The energy potential of the sun is This enables the user to note the value in mobile. This helps the
immense. Despite the unlimited resource however, harvesting domestic users to manage the power usage in home and other
it presents a challenge because of the limited efficiency of the domestic areas.
array cells. Fossil fuels account for around 85 percent of energy
that is produced. Fossil fuel resources are limited and using
them is known to cause global warming because of emission of
IV. HARDWARE DESIGN
greenhouse gases. There is a growing need for energy from
such sources as solar, wind, ocean tidal waves and geothermal
for the provision of sustainable and power. Solar panels directly
convert radiation from the sun into electrical energy. The panels
are mainly manufactured from semiconductor materials,
notably silicon. Their efficiency is 24.5% on the higher side.
Three ways of increasing the efficiency of the solar panels are
through increase of cell efficiency, maximizing the power
output and the use of a tracking system. A solar tracker is used
in various systems for the improvement of harnessing of solar
radiation.
V. CONCEPT OF USING TWO LDRs high speeds, up to 90% of the rated torque is available from
steppers at high speeds. Their efficiencies are between 80 to
The concept of using two LDRs for sensing is explained in the 90%. A stepper is able to supply approximately twice their rated
figure given below. torque for short periods of time, offering enough capacity to
draw from when needed. In addition, they are quiet, are
available in AC and DC, and do not suffer from vibrations.
VII. MESSAGE PASSING THROUGH WI-FI
MODULE
The Wi-Fi module can be connected with the ThingSpeak
server by sending AT commands from the module. The
module first test the AT startup by sending the following
command:
The stable position is when the two LDRs having the same light
AT
intensity.When the light source moves, i.e. the sun moves from The command is passed by the controller to the Wi-Fi
west to east, the level of intensity falling on both the LDRs module using software serial function. In response to the
changes and this change is calibrated into voltage using voltage command 'AT', the platform must respond with 'OK' if
dividers. The changes in voltage are compared using built-in the cloud service is running. Then, the AT command to
comparator of microcontroller and motor is used to rotate the view the version information is passed as follow -
solar panel in a way so as to track the light source. AT + CWMODE = 3
By setting the parameter in CWMODE to 3, the Wi-Fi
VI. STEPPER MOTOR CONTROL connection is configured to SoftAP as well as station
mode. This AT command can in fact take three
Steps are sent through sending electrical pulses of variable
parameters as follow -
width, or pulse width modulation (PWM), through the control
wire. There is a minimum pulse, maximum pulse and a
1 - set Wi-Fi connection to station mode
repetition rate. Steppers can usually turn only 90 degrees in 2 - set Wi-Fi connection to SoftAP mode
either direction for a total of 180 degrees movement. The 3 - set Wi-Fi connection to SoftAP + station mode
neutral position of the motor is defined as that where the stepper In response to this command, the IOT platform must send
has the same amount of potential rotation in both the clockwise back the string indication the Wi-Fi connection mode set.
and counter-clockwise direction. The PWM sent to the motor Now the AT command to reset the module is sent as
determines the position of the shaft, and based on the duration follow –
of the pulse sent through the control wire the rotor will turn to AT + RST
the position that is desired. The stepper motor expects to see a In response to this command, the Wi-Fi module must
pulse after every 20 milliseconds and the length of the pulse
restart and send back a response of 'OK'. After resetting
will determine how far the motor will turn. For instance, a
1.5ms pulse makes the motor to turn in the 90 degrees position.
the module, AT command to setup multiple connections
If the pulse was shorter than 1.5ms, it will move to 0 degrees is enabled by sending the following command -
and a longer pulse moves it to 180 degrees. This is shown below AT + CIPMUX=1
in the figure. This AT command can take two parameters - 0 for setting
single connection and 1 for setting multiple connections.
Next, the command to connect with the Access Point (AP)
is passed which takes two parameters where first
parameter is the SSID of the registered cloud service on
ThingSpeak and the other parameter is the password to
login the cloud service.
AT+CWJAP=\"wifi-iot\",\"qwertyuiop"
Now, the AT command to get local IP address is passed
as follow -
AT + CIFSR
In response to this command, the local IP address of the
Wi-Fi connection is sent back by the module. Now, the
For applications where there is requirement of high torque, module is ready to establish TCP IP connection with the
steppers are preferable. They will also maintain the torque at ThingSpeak server. The controller reads the sensor data
and stores it in a string variable. The TCP IP connection • The difference between the values obtained is the
is established by sending the following AT command - error proportional angle for the rotation of the
AT + CIPSTART = "TCP", "api.thingspeak.com", 80 stepper motor.
The AT + CIPSTART command can be used to establish • If the LDR voltages are the same, the stepper
a TCP connection, register an UDP port or establish an stops. Otherwise, the stepper rotates until the
SSL connection. In the above command, it is used to difference is the same.
establish a TCP IP connection. For establishing a TCP-IP
The inputs into the system are the two LDR voltages into pins
connection, the command takes four parameters where
23 and 24 of the Atmega 328. There is then the conversion of
first parameter is link ID which can be a number between the analog voltages into their digital values. The larger of the
0 to 4, second parameter is connection type which can be two signals is sent to the circuit which drives the DC motor to
TCP or UDP, third parameter is remote IP address or IP the direction with more light intensity. The input stage
address of the cloud service to connect with and last comprises the LDRs which feed the voltage outputs to the
parameter is detection time interval for checking if the microcontroller. From the LDRs are potentiometers that are
connection is live. If the last parameter is set to 0, the TCP used for varying the resistance. When there is plenty of
keep-alive feature is disabled otherwise a time interval in sunshine, the potentiometers are adjusted to their maximum
seconds range from 1 to 7200 can be passed as parameter. value that is 10K. For days when the weather is not very sunny,
In response to this command, the server must respond the resistance is reduced by varying the potentiometer to ensure
readings are more easily taken. The LDRs are connected to pins
with 'OK' if connection is successfully established
4 and 5. The embedded software design has the C code loaded
otherwise it should respond with message 'ERROR'. into the Atmega 328P. The code that was used is shown at the
Now when the connection with the server is successfully appendix of the report. The resistor R1 is a pull up resistor for
established and the controller has read the sensor value, it preventing the microcontroller from continually resetting. Pins
can send the data to the cloud using the following 8 and 22 are grounded as specified by the specifications of the
command - microcontroller. Digital pin 9 is connected to the signal pin of
AT + CIPSEND the stepper motor and serves to control the movement of the
This command takes four parameters, where first stepper motor. There is also the power pin of the stepper motor
parameter is the link ID which can be a number between that is connected to power. The last stepper motor pin is
0 to 4, second parameter is data length which can be grounded. Pins 9 and 10 are for the quartz crystal. There are
various switches that control the powering of different
maximum 2048 bytes long, third parameter is remote IP
components. Pins 7, 20 and 21 are for powering the
in case of an UDP connection and remote port number in microcontroller. It requires 5V. The inputs to the LDR are
case of UDP connection. The third and fourth parameters simulated.
are optional and used only in case of UDP connection
with the server. Since, the TCP IP connection is IX. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
established, these parameters are not used. The command
is followed by a string containing the URL having the The results for the project are obtained from LDRs of the solar
field names and values passed through the HTTP GET tracking system. The outputs of the LDRs were dependent on
method. In this project, a string containing the URL the light intensity falling on their surfaces. Arduino has a serial
having API Key and the sensor value as the field and that communicates on digital pins 0 (RX) and 1 (TX) as well as
value is passed. The passed field and its value are logged with the computer through a USB. If these functions are thus
on the cloud server. It is important to pass the API key in used, pins 0 and 1 can be used for digital input or output.
Arduino environment’s built in serial monitor can be used to
this URL as one of the field-value in order to connect with
communicate with the arduino board. The values from the two
the registered cloud service. LDRs are to be read and recorded at the given intervals. The
LDRs measure the intensity of light and therefore they are a
VIII. ALGORITHM FOR MOTOR CONTROL valid indication of the power that gets to the surface of the solar
panel. The light intensity is directly proportional to the power
The algorithm gives the description of the general steps output of the solar panel. The ATmega 328P has 1024 bytes of
undertaken for the project: EEPROM. The RX and TX pins are used for the connection.
The code for reading the values that were recorded is loaded
• There is input of the voltages from the two LDRs. into the microcontroller. The various values are obtained and
• The inputs are analog. They are converted to converted into volts. The Vcc to the microcontroller and the
digital values that range between 0-1023. LDRs is 5volts. The Atmega 328P has 1024 voltage steps and
• The two digital values are compared and the 5volts. When they are converted into digital values, the values
difference between them obtained. will be in the range of 0-1023. These values are passed as
message to the user with the help of Wi-fi module. The below
picture depicts movement of solar panel of the prototype to the domestic user. The system designed is a single axis
developed in clockwise and anti-clockwise direction. tracker. This project is implemented with minimum resources.
The circuitry has been kept simple, while ensuring that
efficiency is not affected. The sensor collects data value of the
power generated and sends it to Thingspeak cloud. Applying
machine learning techniques on the data set collected from the
sensor, the solar panel can be made to move in the
corresponding direction of the sunlight without the use of
sensors which makes the solar tracking system smart.
XI. REFERENCES
Figure : Movement of panel in clockwise and anti-clockwise [1] K. Sujatha, R.S.Ponmagal, T. Godhavari ,K.S. Ram Kumar,
direction based on intensity of light “Automation of Solar System for Maximum Power Point
Tracking using Artificial Neural Networks and IoT”, IEEE
Journal on Electrical, Computer and Electronics Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University)
Varanasi, India, 2016.
[2] Pallavi.T.Sawant, PC Tejasvi, L.Bhattar Chandrakant,
“Maximization of Solar System under Uniform and Non
Uniform Conditions”, IEEE paper on Circuits Power and
Computing Technologies, 2014.
[3] Marin Radut, Nicu Bizon, “Determining the power
generated by the Photovoltaic Window blinds tilted at different
angles for vertical and horizontal orientations”, IEEE
conference on Electronics, Computers and Artificial
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[4] Divya Mereddy, Vijaya Rama Raju.V, Tharun Sadula ,”
Figure : Monitoring the values in user’s mobile
Smart dual axes solar tracking”, IEEE Journal on Energy
Systems and Applications, 2015.
[5] Marwa Ahmed Abd El Hamied, “Traking and Controlling
Maximum Power Point Utilizing Artificial Intelligent
System”, IEEE Journal on Machine Learning, Artificial
Intelligence, Power electronics, 2015.
[6] Prof.Vaibhav.J.Babrekar, Madhur.S.Kurhekar,
Kaustubh.K.Mulmule, Durgesh.B.Mohade, “Analysis On
Efficiency Of Automated Solar Tracking System”,
International Journal Of Core Engineering & Management
Figure : Graph depicting the varying power generation Volume 1, Issue 7, 2014.
The graph in the above figure depicts the power generation at
different times of the day due to the varying intensity of [7] Nader Barsoum, “Fabrication of Dual-Axis Solar Tracking
sunlight. The graph reaches the peak when the intensity is high Controller Project”, Curtin University, Sarawak, Malaysia,
and stoops down when the intensity is low. Intelligent Control and Automation, 2012.
X. CONCLUSION [8] David Cooke, "Single vs. Dual Axis Solar Tracking",
Alternate Energy eMagazine, 2015.
A solar panel that tracks the sun automatically based on
intensity of sunlight has been designed and implemented. The
required program has been written that specifies various actions
required for the prototype to work. As a result, tracking has
been achieved and the power generated is passed as a message
