MINI PROJECT REPORT

On

SOLAR TRACKING SYSTEM

Dissertation submitted in the partial fulfillment of the academic requirements

For the award of the Degree of
Bachelor of Engineering
In

ELECTRONICS & COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING

Shruti Soumya (17BEC1183)
Kashish Jangid(17BEC1164)
Siddharth Kumar(17BEC1169)

Under the guidance of

Nitin Sharma sir
Prof. ECE Dept.
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
CHANDIGARH UNIVERSITY

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 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the mini project entitled “SOLAR TRACKING SYSTEM” is
being submitted by the following student in partial fulfilment of the academic requirements for
the degree of Bachelor of Technology in Electronics and Communication Engineering,
CHANDIGARH UNIVERSITY during the academic year 2018-19.

Mr.Paras Chawla Mr.Nitin Sharma

Head of the Department, Mentor
Department of ECE. Prof. ECE Department.

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The completion of the mini project gives me immense happiness and satisfaction by
providing me with an opportunity to express my gratitude to everyone who has played an
important role in supporting me in my venture, and i would also take a step ahead to thanks
everybody else who inspired my actions and work.

On an outset i would take an opportunity to express my gratefulness to Mr. Nitin

Sharma,Chandigarh University for always being the fountainhead of all encouragement and
fostering me with the required amenities.

I would also like to express our sincere thanks to Prof. Dr Paras Chawla, Head of the
Department of Electronics and Communications Engineering, who has always been a constant
source of inspiration and enlightenment.

I would also like to express my indebtedness to my guide of Mini Project Mr.Nitin

Sharma Professor of ECE Department who guided me throughout my project and helped me in
all possible ways and provided me with his valuable suggestions.

Lastly, i would like to express my gratefulness to my parents and friends for having
shown their trust and faith in me and boosting my morals constantly.

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 ABSTRACT

Generally, solar panels are stationary and do not follow the movement of the sun.
Here is a solar tracker system that tracks the sun’s movement across the sky and tries to
maintain the solar panel perpendicular to the sun’s rays, ensuring that the maximum
amount of sunlight is incident on the panel throughout the day. The solar tracking system
starts following the sun right from dawn, throughout the day till evening, and starts all
over again from the dawn next day.

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 CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION______________________________________

CHAPTER 1

1.1 Block diagram_______________________________________

1.2 components required_____________________________

CHAPTER 2

2.1 Working______________________________________

2.2 Hardware Components

2.2.1 step by step description_____________________________________

CHAPTER 3

4.1 Source Code________________________________________

CHAPTER 5

5.1 Application_________________________________________

CONCLUSION________________________________________

REFERENCES ________________________________________

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Block 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 given to 4 Analog input pins of Arduino.

The PWM inputs of two servos are given from digital pins 9 and 10 of Arduino.

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Components Required
 Arduino UNO [Buy Here]
 Servo Motor [Buy Here]
 Light Sensors
 LDR [Buy Here]
 Resistors [Buy Here]

Working
LDRs are used as the main light sensors. Two servo motors are fixed to the structure
that holds the solar panel. The program for Arduino is uploaded to the microcontroller.
The working of the project is as follows.

LDRs sense the amount of sunlight falling on them. Four LDRs are divided into top,
bottom, left and right.

For east – west tracking, the analog values from two top LDRs and two bottom LDRs
are compared and if the top set of LDRs receive more light, the vertical servo will move
in that direction.

If the bottom LDRs receive more light, the servo moves in that direction.

For angular deflection of the solar panel, the analog values from two left LDRs and two
right LDRs are compared. If the left set of LDRs receive more light than the right set, the
horizontal servo will move in that direction.

If the right set of LDRs receive more light, the servo moves in that direction.

Setup
Step-1
 Take cardboard. Make a hole in the middle and four holes on four sides so that
LDR fit into that.

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  Stick the solar panel to the cardboard and bring two wires of the panel out as
shown.

Step 2
 Now cut one of the two leads of the LDR so that one lead is shorter and other is
longer.
 Insert these four LDRs into four holes as shown.
 Bend the straight Perforated metal strip as shown below.
 Place the bent metal strip on the back side of the cardboard
 Apply glue to the LDR to fix them firmly.

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Step 3
 Solder the two leads of LDR as shown
 To the other ends of LDR Solder resistors of 10k ohm
 Join the four leads of the 4 LDRs by connecting with a wire.

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Step4
 Now take a bus wire.This is used to connect the Outputs of four LDRs to Arduino
board.
 Insert it into metal strip as shown in the image.
 Now Solder the four wires to four LDRs at any point between LDR and resistor.

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Step 5
 Insert another two wire bus into the perforated metal strip as shown.This is used
for supplying Vcc and GND to LDR circuit.
 Solder one wire to the leads of LDRs which are connected to resistors and other
wire to the other leads.
 Short the leads of LDRs connected to resistors using a wire as shown.

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Step 6
 Now connect a servo motor to the Perforated metal strip using Screw.
 Apply glue to the servo to fix it firmly.

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Step 7
 Take another straight Perforated metal strip and bend it as shown in the figure.

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Step 8
 Now place the set up of solar panel and first servo motor to the metal strip of
second servo motor as shown.

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Project Code
Code for this Arduino based Solar Panel Tracker is easy and well explained by comments. First of
all, we will include the library for servo motor. Then we will initialize the variable for the initial position
of the servo motor. After that, we will initialize the variables to read from the LDR sensors and Servo.

#include <Servo.h>
//defining Servos
Servo servohori;
int servoh = 0;
int servohLimitHigh = 160;
int servohLimitLow = 20;
Servo servoverti;
int servov = 0;
int servovLimitHigh = 160;

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int servovLimitLow = 20;
//Assigning LDRs
int ldrtopl = 2; //top left LDR green
int ldrtopr = 1; //top right LDR yellow
int ldrbotl = 3; // bottom left LDR blue
int ldrbotr = 0; // bottom right LDR orange
void setup ()
{
servohori.attach(10);
servohori.write(0);
servoverti.attach(9);
servoverti.write(0);
delay(500);
}
void loop()
{
servoh = servohori.read();
servov = servoverti.read();
//capturing analog values of each LDR
int topl = analogRead(ldrtopl);
int topr = analogRead(ldrtopr);
int botl = analogRead(ldrbotl);
int botr = analogRead(ldrbotr);
// calculating average
int avgtop = (topl + topr) / 2; //average of top LDRs
int avgbot = (botl + botr) / 2; //average of bottom LDRs
int avgleft = (topl + botl) / 2; //average of left LDRs
int avgright = (topr + botr) / 2; //average of right LDRs
if (avgtop < avgbot)
{
servoverti.write(servov +1);
if (servov > servovLimitHigh)
{
servov = servovLimitHigh;
}
delay(10);
}
else if (avgbot < avgtop)
{
servoverti.write(servov -1);
if (servov < servovLimitLow)

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 {
servov = servovLimitLow;
}
delay(10);
}
else
{
servoverti.write(servov);
}

if (avgleft > avgright)

{
servohori.write(servoh +1);
if (servoh > servohLimitHigh)
{
servoh = servohLimitHigh;
}
delay(10);
}
else if (avgright > avgleft)
{
servohori.write(servoh -1);
if (servoh < servohLimitLow)
{
servoh = servohLimitLow;
}
delay(10);
}
else
{
servohori.write(servoh);
}
delay(50);
}

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 APPLICATION
Solar trackers are devices used to orient photovoltaic panels, reflectors,
lenses or other optical devices toward the sun. Since the sun’s position
in the sky changes with the seasons and the time of day, trackers are
used to align the collection system to maximize energy production.
Several factors must be considered when determining the use of
trackers. Some of these include: the solar technology being used, the
amount of direct solar irradiation, feed-in tariffs in the region where
the system is deployed, and the cost to install and maintain the
trackers.

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 REFRENCES

https://literature.rockwellautomation.com/idc/groups/.../wp/oem-wp009_-en-p.pdf

https://www.electronicshub.org › Arduino

https://www.researchgate.net/.../328389970_Arduino_Based_Solar_Tracking_System_F...

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