Intelligent Solar Panel Tracking System with Sinewave Inverter
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Date
2013
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of Management and Technology
Abstract
Solar energy is rapidly gaining notoriety as an important means of expanding renewable energy resources. Our project includes the design and construction of a microcontroller-based solar panel tracking system and Pure Sinusoidal Inverter. The tracking system computes the position of the sun from available data input by user i.e. (date, month, year and time) and controls the movement of a solar panel so that radiation of the sun comes normally to the surface of the solar panel. The main advantage of the system is that it is programmed, so that it could rotate solar panel at a pre-determined angle and at predetermined periods by using short pulses without using sensors. The developed-tracking system tracks the sun both in the azimuth as well as in the elevation plane. The operation of the experimental model of the device is based on a DC motor intelligently controlled by a dedicated drive unit that moves a PV panel according to the yearly calendar stored in microcontroller.
This report alsofocuses on DC to AC power inverter, which aimto efficiently transform a DC source to a high voltage AC source. An inverter circuit by using sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation (SPWM) switching schemes is developed to run AC utilities. DC is one type of energy that is found in solar panels and can be stored in batteries for usage in future. Semiconductor device, Metal Oxide Field Effect Transistor (MOSFET) is used as switch in full bridge (H-Bridge) inverter configuration using Unipolar voltage switching. Driver circuit for MOSFET is also very important as it is used to interface between control circuits (Low voltage part) and inverter (High voltage part). PIC microcontroller chip is used to generate modulating signals. At the end of this project, the SPWM output signal is developed from the Microcontroller and applied to the MOSFET driver and the inverter. The method to complete the desires outcome would be to first convert the low voltage DC to AC by using pulse width modulation, and then use a transformer to boost the voltage to 220 volts to drive the AC load.
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Keywords
Solar Panel, Tracking System, Sinewave Inverter