CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 INTRODUCTION
In development of a nation the prime factor that comes to the mind is the energy. Almost 85% of
worlds energy production depends on fossil fuels. As a matter of fact these fossil fuels are
depleting very fast and also their consumption significantly contribute towards Global Warming.
Therefore for future power generation renewable sources of energy are to be considered which
causes no harm to global environment.

Solar energy is a renewable resource which is clean, economical, and less polluted compared to
other resources and energy. Photovoltaic module is one of the efficient sources by which solar
energy is converted in the form of electricity. .Solar panel engrosses the energy from the sun and
the energy can be stored in the battery which can be used for different purposes.

1.2 CONCEPT
Solar tracker is a system by which a solar panel can actually follow the sun to increase the power.
The main objective of this system is to develop a standard model of solar tracking system which
consists of image processing using C++ programming language and sensor simultaneously. Thus
it can increase the efficiency of solar panel at a great extent compared with the conventional
systems.
 CHAPTER 2
PHOTOVOLTAIC TECHNOLOGY

3.1 INTRODUCTION

PV technology converts sunlight directly into electrical energy. It works based on photo voltaic
effect. PV cells are commonly known as solar cells.
3.2 PHOTOVOLTAIC EFFECT
Sunlight is composed of photons or packets of energy. When photons strikes a solar cell the
energy of the photon is transferred to the electrons which enables them to jump from valence band
to conduction band. When electron leaves its normal position it causes a hole to form. And thus
electron hole pairs are generated.

3.3 WORKING OF A PV CELL

Basic principle of working of a solar cell is as follows:

Fig 3.1 Working principle of a PV cell

The solar cell is consist of a PN junction. When light falls on the PN junction electron hole pairs
are generated in the junction. Under the influence of the barrier
potential across the PN junction the generated electrons will move towards the N side and holes
tend to move towards the P side causing the flow of current into external load.

3.4 CONCLUSION
This chapter gives a brief idea about photovoltaic technology which convert sunlight directly
into electrical energy based on photovoltaic effect .working of photo voltaic cell is also explained
here
 CHAPTER 3
EXISTING SOLAR TRACKING SYSTEM
5.1 INTRODUCTION
A solar tracker is a device that orients the solar panel towards the sun. Sunlight has two components
the direct beam that carries about 90% of energy and the diffused sunlight that carries the
remainder energy. As majority of energy is in direct beam maximizing collection requires sun to
be directed towards panel as long as possible. By using trackers panels can be made to receive
direct radiation almost all day.The power output of such a panel is more than that of a conventional
static solar panel because the exposure to sunlight is more in case of tracked solar panels.

Dual axis solar trackers are now in use, which can rotate the panel in both horizontal and vertical
axes.

Fig 5.1 Dual axis solar tracker

5.2 EXISTING TRACKING SYSTEM

Existing system uses Light Dependent Resistor (LDR) sensors to track the sun .
Fig 5.2 LDR sensors

LDR sensors are made using semiconductor materials.When light falls on it the electrons in the
valence band are excited to conduction band.As a result resistance of the device decreases.
LDRs show decrease in electrical resistance as they are exposed to light. Four LDRs are used for
tracking the sun.Two pair of LDRs are used as sensors to track the suns exact position One pair
senses the position of the sun in vertical axis i.e. east and west side and other pair in the horizontal
axis i.e. north and south side.
 Fig 5.3 Block diagram of existing system

The LDRs are arranged in the shadow arrangement for tracking the sun

Fig 5.4 Arrangement of LDRs for solar tracking

If the PV panel is not perpendicular to the sunlight, the shadow of the cylinder will cover one or
two LDRs and this causes different light intensity to be received by the sensing device. The
information from the LDRs is then passed to a light comparison unit. The output from the light
comparison unit is digitalized using an ADC. This information is then passed to a microcontroller
which controls the servomotors and rotates the panel towards the sun. the power supply for the
components can be derived from the panel itself.

5.3 DISADVANTAGES OF EXISTING SYSTEM

Less accurate
Generates less power
System will fail when LDR sensors become inactive
Slow response of LDRs to change in intensity of light
Temperature dependence of LDR sensors

CONCLUSION
This chapter gives a brief idea about existing tracking system i.e, LDR sensors to
track the sun. this chapter also deals with the working of LDR sensors using
semiconductor meterials and limitations of existing system
 CHAPTER 4
PROPOSED SYSTEM OF TRACKING
6.1 INTRODUCTION
The modified system combines both hardware and software. It uses LDR sensors as well as an
image processing software to track the sun.

Fig 6.1 Block diagram of tracking system using image processing and LDR

Initially by processing the information from LDRs the microcontroller takes the panel to an initial
position and then a picture is taken by the camera mounted on the panel and image processing is
applied to track the sun accurately.
CONCLUSION
The efficiency of solar panels can be increased to a great extent is the solar panel continuously
rotate in the direction of sun.this chapter explained the main objective of this system is develop a
standard modal of solar tracking system which consist of image processing and sensors
simultaneously
 CHAPTER 5
METHODOLOGY
7.1 INTRODUCTION
The sun is tracked in two stages. Firstly LDR sensors with shadow arrangement compares
intensities of light falling on them and adjust the panel to an initial position which need not be
accurate. If the solar panel is out of track or in opposite direction of sun it is adjusted towards the
direction of sun. Secondly webcam mounted on the solar panel captures an image of the sun and
the computer processes the image using software algorithm. The co-ordinate of the sun is
calculated by described process and the two servo motors are controlled such that the sun remains
in the center of the captured image. The two steps are occurred repeatedly and position of the sun
is tracked accurately by web cam.
The steps are explained as follows;

7.2 TRACKING USING LDR SENSOR

The LDRs are arranged in shadow arrangement. The resistivity of LDRs decreases as light falls on
them. When we apply a constant voltage across LDRs and when the light intensity increases the
current through the LDRs increases. The LDRs are arranged in shadow arrangement as shown.

Fig 7.1 shadow arrangement of LDRs in proposed system

By comparing the current variations in each LDR the controller takes the panel to an initial position
by rotating the two servos.
7.3 IMAGE PROCESSING
Image processing is used to calculate the co-ordinates of the sun.The block diagram shows the
steps involved in image processing

Fig 7.2 Block diagram of image processing

IMAGE CAPTURING
An image of the sun is captured using the webcam mounted on the panel. The captured

image is of RGB type.

GRAYSCALE CONVERSION AND FILTERING

The captured image is consist of bright sun and blue sky. The processing of image is done
in grayscale by extracting the luminescence plane from the RGB plane. The Gaussian filter
is used to reduce the noise in captured image.
 Fig 7.3 Grayscale image with bright sun

SUN DETECTION
In order to extract the bright sun spot a technique called binary threasholding is applied.
Due to the possibility of cloud around the sun some smaller objects are present in the image.
Finding the largest area will eliminate the smaller objects.

Fig 7.4 Binary threasholding

SUN TRACKING AND CO-ORDINATE ESTIMATION

 After seperating the sun spot co-ordinates of the sun are found out by using centroid
formula for irregular objects. The center of image is also calculated. Sun co-ordinate is
compared with the image center co-ordinate for controlling the servo motors.

Fig 7.5 Sun tracking and co-ordinate estimation

AXIS TRANSFORMATION
If the origin O(x0.y0) is shifted to O(x1,y1) but the direction of axes remain unchanged
then in the transformed co-ordinate the origin is to be shifted by (x1-x0) in X direction
and (y1-yo) in Y direction.

Fig 7.6 Transformation of origin

ADJUSTMENT OF SOLAR PANEL BY TRACKING THE SUN

The webcam captures the image of the sun and the co-ordinates of sun are calculated
using image processing. Now the camera screen center point is adjusted such that the sun
always remain in the center point as shown. The two servo motors are adjusted to control
the positioning of the panel.
 Fig 7.7 Camera position control
a) Camera detect sun at (x1,y1)
b) Camera screen center shifted to that point

CONCLUSION
The methodology is a combination of hardware and software its can be used to control hundreds
of solar panels in a solar power plant with a more accuracy. It can be concluded that the proposed
system is more accurate and efficient than the conventional solar tracking systems

7.1ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF THE SYSTEM

Advantages

Highly accurate
Generate more electricity than stationary counterpart
They optimize land usage
High efficiency compared to fixed arrays
Suitable for large scale power generation
Disadvantages

More expensive than its stationary counterpart

More maintenance required than traditional fixed PV array
Trackers are more complex
Trackers cannot operate under adverse climatic conditions

CONCLUSION

To conclude it can be said that the proposed system increased the efficiency of solar panel
by tracking the sun in appropriate direction. The mechanism can be made more effective if more
LDR sensors are used and every solar panel in a particular area has a webcam. The greater the
resolution of the camera better will be the accuracy. This method is suitable for solar power plants.

For minimizing the cost Raspberry-pi can be used instead of computer. The microcontroller
and the computer can be fed from the power produced by the panel itself.
After all, the proposed system can optimize power requirement by tracking the sun more
appropriately.