SOLAR

SOLARTRACKING
TRACKINGSYSTEM
SYSTEMUSING
USING
8051
8051MICROCONTROLLER
MICROCONTROLLER

THE SOLAR OPTION:

Solar energy is a very large, inexhaustible source of energy. The power from the sun
intercepted by the earth is approximately 1.8*1011MW, which is many thousands of times
larger than the present consumption rate on the earth of all commercial energy sources.
Solar energy could supply all the present and future energy needs of the world on a
continuing basis. This makes it one of the most promising of the unconventional energy
sources.
It has two other factors in the favour:
i. Firstly, unlike fossil fuels and nuclear power, it is environmentally clean source of
energy.
ii.Secondly, it is free and available in adequate quantities in almost all parts of the world
where people live. Also it has no heavy mechanical section and is free from noise.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of our projects is to utilize the maximum solar energy through solar panel. For this a digital
based automatic sun tracking system is proposed.
The solar panel tracks the sun from east to west automatically for maximum intensity of light.
Processes Involved are-:
i.To fabricate a Stepper motor control interfaced with driver circuit.
ii.To construct a model prototype solar cell movement system with a mechanical
assemble to move the panel from 180 E to W.
iii.To design an electronic circuit to sense the intensity of light and to control stepper
motor driver for the panel movement.

How the Tracker follow the Sun:

1.Sunrise "Wake- Up:
The Track Rack begins the day
facing west. As the morning
sun rises, the sun rays falls on
the LDR, it detects and sends
signal to stepper motor to turn
towards the east.

3. Mid-Afternoon:

As the sun moves, the Track

Rack follows (at
approximately 15o per hour,
continually moving from one
side to another.

2. Mid-Morning:

As the sun rises, the LDR

also detect the angle, where
its getting maximum
efficiency and
correspondingly move
towards that direction.

4. Sunset:

The Track Rack completes its

daily cycle facing west. It
remains in this
position
overnight
until
it
is
"awakened" by the rising sun
the following morning.

BLOCK DIAGRAM
POWER
SUPPLY

DRIVER
LDR 1
COMPARATOR

LDR 2

MICROCONTROLLER

STEPPER
MOTOR

CIRCUIT DIAGRAM

COMPONENTS USED:
COMPONENT

SPECIFICATIONS

1. Microcontroller

AT89S52.

2. Voltage regulator

7812,7805.

3. Driver

ULN2003.

4. LDR,LCD

---

5. Stepper Motor

7.5 degree per step

6. Transformer

TRAN-2P2S

7. Crystal Oscillator

11.0592 MHz

8. Resistors

100.

9. Capacitor

33pF, 1000uF.

10. Potentiometer

10K(3).

SOFTWARE:
Embedded C programming.
Keil C compiler.

POWER SUPPLY:

The aim is to design the power supply section which converts 230V AC in to 5V DC.
We short listed to use Bridge rectifier, because half wave rectifier has less efficiency. Even though the
efficiency of full wave and bridge rectifier are the same, but as there is no requirement for any negative
voltage for our application, we gone with bridge rectifier.

WORKING WITH KEIL SOFTWARE:

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FUTURE ADVANCEMENTS:

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ECONOMICALLY AFORDABLE:

The attractive feature of the constructed prototype is the software solution of many
challenges regarding solar tracking system.

The designed prototype requires only two photo resistors to sense the light, which
lessens the cost of the system.

Power consumption of the system is negligible as wait states are calculated perfectly
with the suns position.
Another major problem of system initialization at the start of the day is solved through
a simple programming application. All these software based solution reduce the system
cost far more than all other systems proposed to date.

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CONCLUSION

We presented a means of tracking the suns position with the help of

microcontroller. Specially, it demonstrates a working software solution for
maximizing solar cell output by positioning a solar panel at the point of maximum
light intensity.
Moreover, the tracker can initialize the starting position itself which reduce the
need of any more photo resistors.
Though the prototype has limitations in hardware areas as an initial set up, still it
provides an opportunity for improvement of the design methodology in future.

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THANK YOU