system is shown in figure no 1.
International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 4, Issue 6, June-2013 2998
ISSN 2229-5518
Sun Tracking System with Microcontroller 8051
Syed Arsalan
Abstract— The uses of alternative sources of energies are becoming widely spread in all over the world. Our sun is also a very good source of different energies; the light energy has a very remarkable value. The Solar panel converts the light energy into the electrical energy. The efficiency of solar panel can be maximized by aligning the solar panel with the sun. The sun tracking system is designed in this project, offers a reliable and affordable method of aligning a solar panel with the sun on single axis. This project is based on microcontroller
8051 with a simple circuit and sun tracking software.
Index Terms— Microcontroller 8051, Stepper motor, LDR sensor, Solar panel, Sun tracking software.
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HIS paper deals with the research and development of a Sun tracking system. Now a day’s Renewable energy solu- tions are becoming increasingly popular. Maximizing power output from a solar system is desirable to increase effi- ciency. In order to maximize power output from the solar panels, one need is to keep the panels aligned with the sun, means that the tracking of the sun is required. This is a far more cost effective solution than purchasing additional solar panels. The tracking is done by this tracking system in a sim- ple way, this project has two ways of tracking, auto-tracking and manual-tracking, auto-tracking is working on LDR sensor while the manual-tracking is working by the software named “sun tracking software”, this manual-tracking is an optional part of this project, if the system is not tracking manually so the system uses auto tracking, this system is designed with specific methodology, this system using solar pan- el(photocells), stepper motor, microcontroller 8051, physical construction, and a software. The real image of the tracking
system is shown in figure no 1.
Fig. 1. “The sun tracking system”
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There are many different components and also the methods used to track the sun. This system has a simple combination of electronic circuit. This project contains the basic component which deals with the Solar panel, Stepper motor, Microcon- troller (8051), Analog to digital convertor (ADC), Optocoupler, Tip41 (power transistor), Light dependent register (LDR), Re- lay, Sun tracking software.
The block diagram of this project has three basic units, descrip- tion of these units are as following:
In this project, the unit 1is using the LDR sensor to get in- put data of light, this data is in the analog form, on the basis of this data, system track the sun.
Analog to digital converter (ADC) is using to convert the analog data, by the LDR sensor, into digital data. The micro- controller uses this digital data for tracking.
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The microcontroller 8051 has a basic role in this project; it takes action according to its program on the basis of ADC’s data.
Relays are also playing an important role in this tracking sys- tem, they are using as a switch between unit 1 and unit 2.
This unit has the software portion for tracking; this unit allows the user to track the sun manually.
In unit 3, the microcontroller 8051get the instructions from the unit 1 or unit 2 and give the instructions to the stepper motor to track the sun.
In unit 3, the opto-coupler is using to safe the microcontrol- ler 8051 in the circuit and the Tip41 is using as a power transis- tor for the stepper motor.
The stepper motor plays an important role in this project;
it directed the panel towards the sun.
All the system works to keep the solar panel directed to- wards the sun, the solar panel generate the DC voltages.
This system is using +5V DC power, as the input, for the all the three units and also +12V DC for the stepper motor of unit
3.
This project has two ways of tracking: Auto tracking (By the sensor) Manual tracking (By the software)
The auto tracking is performed on the basis of sensor LDR. In this system the LDR get the light intensity data, this analog data is converted into the digital form by passing through ADC, now microcontroller of unit 1 get the eight bits data of light, The microcontroller 8051 of unit 1 gets the sever- al readings of ADC, it’s subroutines compare these values, If any of the values are equal, the unit 1 microcontroller 8051 not take any decision for unit 3, it waits for few minutes and check again later. If it gets the greater value of the difference, which is defined in it, it sends a bit, to move, for unit 3. If light inten- sity below the low light threshold level, the tracker will keep measuring at whatever position it is at until the threshold is reached. The threshold for this portion has been assigned a constant in microcontroller. This level corresponds to what was measured with the solar panel during daytime. The last
portion of the routine in microcontroller allows the system to reset itself at the end of a day. After every motor movement, a register is incremented or decremented so that the net position of the tracker can be known at any given time. Once the track- er moved 180 degrees, light intensity is checked; the system will return to its starting point and enters in sleep mode.
In manual tracking we used software named “Sun Track- ing Software”; this software is created on VB.NET, with the help of this software we can move the solar panel in our de- sired direction on one axis, this software uses the parallel port to communicate with the circuit of unit 3, when the system using manually then it’s circuit switched on solar tracking software from sensor and user can move the solar panels on one axis by the arrow keys. It can be used as an optional part in this system, if it is not in use so the system works on auto tracking. Figure 2 (a) and (b) shows the two different views of software.
Fig. 1 (a) View of software.
Fig. 1 (b) Next view of software.
Both the unit 1 and unit 2, sends the instructions to unit 3. Ba- sically unit 3 operates the stepper motor (which is connected
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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 4, Issue 6, June-2013 3000
ISSN 2229-5518
with the solar panel’s stand) on 180 degrees on one axis; the microcontroller 8051 of unit 3 gets the two bits instructions (to move forward or backward) from the unit 1 and unit 2 and uses the four bits data for stepper motor.
Fig. 2 (a) Stepper motor with circuit.
Fig. 2 (b) Complete circuit.
The output from the static or flat solar panel and the tracking solar panel are showing in the following table, these outputs are obtained during the 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM, the readings are observed after every half an hour. The output results are measured in the Voltages (Volts).
In this project, the sun tracking system is developed based on
8051 microcontroller. The microcontroller 8051 based circuit is
used in this system with a minimum number of components and
the use of stepper motors enables accurate tracking of the sun.
After examining the information obtained in the data table sec-
tion and in plotted graph, It has been shown that the sun tracking
systems can collect maximum energy than a fixed panel system
collects and high efficiency is achieved through this tracker, it can
be said that the proposed sun tracking system is a feasible meth- od of maximizing the light energy received from sun. This is an efficient tracking system for solar energy collection.
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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 4, Issue 6, June-2013 3001
ISSN 2229-5518
Alhamdulillah, I have completed my project, my team mem- bers are anis ahmed, yasir majeed, syeda sadaf zhera, syeda safia gul, adeela qadeer and nida sadiq, with the blessing and help of My Dear Allah. I would like to thanks my respectable sir ashraf, sir masood raza and sir rehan from FUUAST, also my dear parents, family members and all friends specialy mu- hammad aqeel khan noori who help me in this project.
[1] The 8051 Microcontroller and Embedded Systems- Mazidi and Mazidi
[2] Arindam Bose, Sounak Sarkar, Sayan Das “Helianthus –a Low Cost High Efficient Solar Tracking System Using AVR Microcontroller”, International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 3, Issue 10, October-2012 ISSN 2229-5518
[3] K.S.Madhu, B.R.Wadekar, Finavivya Chiragkumar.V, Gagan.T.M “Intelligent Two Axis Solar Tracking System with Mechanical Appli- cation”, International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 3, Issue 9, September-2012 1 ISSN 2229-5518
[4] http://www.google.com.pk/imgres?q=sun+flowers&hl=en&biw=10
24&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbnid=eyT4ndDLDhVcZM:&imgrefurl=http:
//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunflower&docid=Ah11Rbmt4RIu5M&im gurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4
/40/Sunflower_sky_backdrop.jpg/250px- Sunflow- er_sky_backdrop.jpg&w=250&h=277&ei=JJVzUb6vPIeGrAef0oAY& zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:3,s:0,i:139&iact=rc&dur=831&page=1&tbnh=
178&tbnw=156&start=0&ndsp=12&tx=68&ty=91
[5] http://www.google.com.pk/imgres?q=solar+panel&start=324&sa= X&hl=en&biw=1024&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbnid=EP0IegVTO_knLM:
&imgrefurl=http://depositphotos.com/3984402/stock-illustration- Solar-
Pan- el.html&docid=iQuKWAqneUlxvM&imgurl=http://static4.depositp hotos.com/1030387/398/v/950/depositphotos_3984402-Solar-
Pan- el.jpg&w=1024&h=1024&ei=4ZVzUbalIMborAeCkIGwBA&zoom=1
&ved=1t:3588,r:31,s:300,i:97&iact=rc&dur=366&page=20&tbnh=178&
tbnw=178&ndsp=18&tx=116&ty=54
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