We are facing a climate crisis, and the world needs to generate electricity in more climate neutral ways. One alternative is to use solar energy. The highest efficiency can be achieved if the surface normal is pointed towards the sun, instead of just having it stationary. To solve this, people make a system called a solar tracker. In this project a prototype of a solar tracker is made, which can follow the sun in any direction. The solar tracker consists of a mechanical structure, two DC-motors that move the structure, and a microcontroller that implements the regulator to control the motors. All the mechanical parts were constructed and then printed using a 3D-printer. Manual control was implemented for making troubleshooting and testing easier. The electrical system is soldered on an experimental board and then mounted with the motor driver and mechanical construction on a bottom structure. There are a few interesting things that could be further developed. One is to implement sensors at the start point and end point of the sun tracking so that the tracker can return to the starting point after the sunset. It would be interesting to scale up the construction a bit and make some more useful measurements on larger panels to see if the system is energy effective enough to be useful; to make some outdoor tests and see how the sensors and control system work in a real-world environment; and to investigate and eventually develop its ability to adapt to cloudy weather.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-387629 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | Karlsson, Jimmy |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Signaler och System |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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