Arduino-Controlled Rotating Solar Panels: An Industrial Investigation

This project details the development of a rotating solar panel system using an Arduino UNO microcontroller, stepper motors, and LDR sensors to maximize solar energy capture. The rationale behind the project stems from the increasing demand for green energy and the need to improve the efficiency of solar panels. The system employs a closed-loop feedback control mechanism to continuously orient the solar panel towards the sun, compensating for changes in the sun's position due to Earth's rotation and revolution. The project incorporates mathematical models to calculate the optimal rotation angles for both horizontal and vertical planes, ensuring the solar panel remains orthogonal to the sun's rays. The prototype design includes components like the Arduino UNO, stepper motors, and LDR sensors, all working together to automate the solar tracking process, thereby increasing the overall efficiency of the solar panel. The document also includes a literature review, research design, timeline, and ethical considerations.

Running head: INDUSTRIAL INVESTIGATION 0
INDUSTRY INVESTIGATION
Name of Student
Institution Affiliation

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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=4 π 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

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Where ѲZ is the altitude angle = 900 and this is known as the zenith of the sun. ɸ is the latitude
while ώ is the hour angle (which is always 150 / hour) where ώ=0 at local noon σ is the solar
declination. And σ is obtained from cooper´s equation;
σ = 23.45sin [360/365(284+N] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Where N is the first day of the year. It is 1 of 365,
Rotational angle of the rotating solar in horizontal plan (ѲA) is obtain from equation;
Sin ѲA = cos σsinω
cosθZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .
6
Fig 4: Showing the framework of the rotating solar (Dobson, 2015)
This rotating solar panel will operate on a closed loop control system since it has an Arduino
controller and its closed loop is illustrated using the diagram below;

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Fig 5: Showing a closed loop block diagram of a rotating solar panel (Monk, 2017).
The design of this rotating solar photovoltaic panel is based on the components which make up
the whole prototype. These components include the following;
 Stepper motor
 Arduino UNO
 Solar Panel
 LDR
The Stepper motor
The stepper motor is DC motors which always operate in discrete steps. Stepper motor always
contains several coils which are energized in groups known as phases. Through energizing every
phase in sequence, the motor will move one step at a time (Boxall, 2013). With a program
controlling the stepping, it is possible to realize an accurate position and speed control of the
motor. This motor can be illustrated using the following diagram

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Fig 6: Showing the connection of stepper motor. (Athani, 2013).
And since this motor rotates through the control of Arduino and it in a discrete manner, the
below are some digital steps in which this motor will rotate.
Motion Steps X x̅ Y Ȳ Hex Values Angle
Clockwise
1 0 1 0 1 5H 00
2 1 0 0 1 9H 900
3 1 0 1 0 AH 1800
4 0 1 1 0 06H 2700
This motor divides full rotation to a device of a display. If the input information is an electrical
signal the display will hence be electronic display giving a specific number of step. The position
of the motor is then commanded hold and move at one of the steps without having any sensor for
position to give the feedback so long there is an accurate sizing of the motor to its application
with respect to the speed and torque.

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Arduino UNO
Arduino Uno is the microcontroller which is employed here for the control of the stepper motor.
It is the Arduino where the codes controlling the stepper motor is written. Arduino will control
the tilting of the solar panel by controlling the movement of the stepper motor. When the stepper
motor moves the solar panel will move as well since the stepper motor is coupled to the solar
panel. Arduino is an open –source platform which is employed in the development of an
electronic project. It has both physical printed circuit board. A piece of Integrated Development
Environment which operates the tilting of the solar. A prototype of the Arduino UNO module is
illustrated using the following diagram.
Fig 7: Showing an Arduino UNO module (Blum, 2013).
The Arduino codes which controlled all the operation of the rotating solar panel is given below,
the codes clearly determine all the commands of the operation of the Arduino in the control of
the rotating solar panel.