Rotating Solar Panels by Using Arduino: A Prototype for Maximum Collection of Solar Energy

Running head: INDUSTRIAL INVESTIGATION 0
INDUSTRY INVESTIGATION
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Table of Contents
PART ONE.................................................................................................................................................2
Rationale and aims..................................................................................................................................2
Literature Review....................................................................................................................................4
Earth ́s Rotation and Revolution..........................................................................................................5
Sunlight and the Solar Constant...........................................................................................................7
The Stepper motor.............................................................................................................................10
Arduino UNO....................................................................................................................................11
Solar Panel.........................................................................................................................................14
LDR (Light Dependence Resistance)................................................................................................16
Research questions................................................................................................................................18
Scope of project.....................................................................................................................................18
PART TWO...............................................................................................................................................20
Research Design........................................................................................................................................20
Data collection, Analysis...........................................................................................................................20
Timeline and capability development........................................................................................................21
Ethical issues.............................................................................................................................................22
Reflective journal......................................................................................................................................25
References.................................................................................................................................................28

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PART ONE
Rationale and aims
With the world increase, demand in electrical energy and exhaustion and pollution which
are linked to the fossil fuels has fostered the research and development to harvest the maximum
green energy which is very friendly to our environment (Dobson, 2015). Therefore to attain this
maximum collection of the green electrical energy, Rotating Solar Panels by Using Arduino is
the most preferred technique to realize this. In this paper, a prototype of the rotating solar panels
will be used together with Arduino UNO. The feedback control scheme which permits doing the
solar tracking through two axes with a help of linear actuators and a stepper motor. These were
established via the electronic circuit diagram. The knowledge of the photodiodes will also be
employed to help trace the solar for maximum collection of solar.
The main aim of this project is to make a solar panel to be orthogonal to the rays from
the sun throughout the year for maximum collection of the sun illumination hence maximum
solar power collected throughout the year. This will be made possible through a controller
known as Arduino Uno and the stepper motors which will act as the actuators and make the solar
photovoltaic panel to rotate with respect to the rays of the sun. A sensor which will be employed
is a photodiode sensor. Solar energy is mostly employed in housing because it is very simple to
install, it is relatively safe as compared to the on grind electric power.
For a maximum solar output power the module of the photovoltaic needs to be
automated through sensors (photodiode), controller (Arduino) and actuators (stepper motors).
Through automation of the solar photovoltaic panel will be able to trace the rays of the sunlight
by its own without being moved to the sunlight by a human being (that is what is referred to as

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rotating solar panel). Through this automation, the performance of the solar panel has really
increased. This automation of the solar panel is realized through both a closed loop feedback
control system and open loop system (Mruzek, 2015). The most effectively tracking control
system is that for the closed-loop control system. This is because the closed-loop control system
different active sensors which are accountable for receiving solar radiation signal like LDR
(Light Dependent Resistance) and CCD (charge-coupled device ) and again the closed loop
control gives a feedback to the controller (Arduino UNO) which will permits the continuous
orientation of the panel with respect to the rays of the sunlight.
This innovation will also be of a great importance to the industry since it will ensure a
constant supply of electrical energy as well as it will help the industry to save the money they
would have used in the toxic materials treatment before they are disposed to the environment.
This project will also be easy to be implemented and used sustainable in the society since the
parts which are used in the construction are not that expensive, for instance, Arduino UNO,
stepper motor, LDR, photodiode are relatively cheap and are highly affordable (Monk, 2017).
The maximum collection of sun rays will hence improve the efficiency of the solar, where the
efficiency can be obtained from the following equations;
Pmax= VOCISCFF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
And from equation1 we can obtain equation 2 for the efficiency of the solar panel.
Ƞ= VOCISCFF
Ptn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. 2
Where FF is the fill factor, Ƞ is the solar panel efficiency VOC is the open circuit voltage and
ISC is the short-circuit current.

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Literature Review
There is some journal which explains this project, these illustrate the design of the
rerating solar panel as well as the codes used in coding Arduino Uno which makes the solar to
rotate effectively as anticipated. A rotating solar is a device which is employed for orientation of
the arrays of the solar panel. The sun ́s position in the sky keeps on changing due to change in
seasons and time of the day when the sun revolves. Through the utilization of sun based arrays,
an arrangement of sun based cells electrically associated, there's era of a DC voltage that can be
utilized on a stack. There's an expanded utilize of sun based clusters as their inefficiencies ended
up higher. They are especially popular in inaccessible zones where there's no association to the
network. Photovoltaic vitality is that which is gotten from the sun (Kidder, 2014). A photovoltaic
cell, commonly known as a sun-oriented cell, is the innovation utilized for the transformation of
solar directly into electrical control. The photovoltaic cell may be a non-mechanical made of
silicon amalgam.
A solar panel tracker is a gadget utilized for situating a photovoltaic array solar board or
for concentrating sun oriented reflector or focal point toward the sun. The position of the sun
within the sky is changed both with seasons and time of day as the sun moves over the sky. Sun
oriented fuelled hardware work best when they are pointed at the sun (Robert, 2015). Hence, a
sun-oriented tracker increments how productive such hardware are over any settled position at
the fetched of extra complexity to the framework. There are distinctive sorts of trackers.
Extraction of usable power from the sun got to be conceivable with the revelation of the
photoelectric mechanism and subsequent improvement of the sun based cell (Prinsloo, 2014).
The sun based cell may be a semiconductor fabric which changes over unmistakable light into
coordinate current (Gerro, 2012).

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Earth ́s Rotation and Revolution
The earth is a planet of the sun and spins around it. Other than that, it too rotates around
its axis once every 24 hours. This movement is capable for the event of day and night. The sun
oriented day may be a time period of 24 hours and the duration of a sidereal is 23 hours and 56
minutes. There are hence two movements of the earth, revolution and rotation (Krul, 2014). The
soil turns on its axis from west to east. The axis of the earth is a fanciful line which passes
through the southern and northern poles of the earth (Snow, 2014). The difference of 4 minutes
since the earth's position keeps changing with reference to the sun. This can be illustrated using
the following diagram;
Fig1: Showing the rotation of the earth (Krul, 2014)
The motion of the earth around the sun is referred to as revolution. It moreover happens from
west to east and takes a period of 365 days. The circle of the earth is elliptical. Since this
distance between the earth and the sun keeps changing. The clear yearly track of the sun via the

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fixed stars within the firmament sphere is referred to as the ecliptic. The earth’s axis makes an
angle of 66.5 degrees to the ecliptic plane. Since of this, the soil achieves four basic positions
with reference to the sun and these four results to the four seasons.
Fig2: Showing both rotation and revolution of the earth (Krul, 2014)
Sunlight and the Solar Constant
The sun conveys vitality by implies of electromagnetic radiation. There's a sun-powered
combination that results from the seriously temperature and weight at the centre of the sun.
Protons get changed over into helium molecules at 600 million tons per moment. Since the
output of the method has lower energy than the protons which started, the combination gives rise
to parts of vitality in the frame of gamma beams that are absorbed by particles within the sun and
re-emitted (Maloney, 2014). The sun ́s total power can be approximated from the law of Stefan
and Boltzmann as given by the equation below;
P=4π r2 σε T 4 W . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Where r is the earth ́s radius = 695800, T is the absolute temperature which is about 5800K σ is
the Boltzmann = 1.3806488×10-23m2S-2K-1, ε is the emissivity of the surface while P is the total
power of the sun.

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For a better design of this project, a DC motor and its driver needed to be analysed
mathematically (Staff, 2016). It is very vital to understand the behaviour of the sun orbit in the
moths of June (summer) and December (winter). And this can be illustrated by the diagram
below;
Fig 3: Showing the sun ́s orientation during the months of December and June (Krul, 2014).
From figure 3 above, some mathematical analysis can be done to obtain the rotation angle of the
orientation in the vertical plane. The rotational angles are very vital since they will be used in the
design of the automatic solar pane (rotating solar panel) since the angle of rotation of the sun
should be proportional to the movement of the solar as its traces the sun rays.
SinѲ= sin ɸsinσ + cos ɸ. Cosσ. Cos ώ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4