Solar Tracking and Smart Cleaning System

In today's advanced technological era, the electricity demand is increasing day by day. Be it a large manufacturing industry or small domestic appliances and tiny gadgets,  everything runs on electrical energy. With this growing demand for energy, conventional electricity generation techniques

Project Title

Solar Tracking and Smart Cleaning System

Project Area of Specialization

Electrical/Electronic Engineering

Project Summary

In today's advanced technological era, the electricity demand is increasing day by day. Be it a large manufacturing industry or small domestic appliances and tiny gadgets,  everything runs on electrical energy. With this growing demand for energy, conventional electricity generation techniques deem insufficient. This insufficiency of conventional energy resources compels us to think about Renewable Energy Resources. Among these Renewable Resources, solar is a popular and widely used one.

A solar photovoltaic (PV) cell converts the light from the sun to electrical energy using the photovoltaic effect. The more the intensity of light falling on the solar PV cell, the more will be the electrical energy produced. During different time intervals in the day, the direction of sunlight falling on the PV cell changes and it is maximum when the solar panel's surface is facing the sunlight. 

A solar tracker is a system that makes the solar panels face the sunlight by changing the orientation of the cell according to the movement of the sun. In this way, we can track the sun and by rotating the panels accordingly, we can ultimately get the maximum output energy for the whole day.

Apart from the problem of solar panel's orientation, another major factor that impacts the capacity of the panel is dust and other particles that make its surface unclear hindering maximum exposure to light.

To address these problems, various techniques can be used. Through this project, we'll design and implement a solar tracking and cleaning system. 

Project Objectives

Our project has two major objectives:

1. To track the sun and position the solar panel accordingly in order to get the maximum output.

2. To design and implement a mechanism for the cleaning of solar panels.

Project Implementation Method

The implementation of the project consists of two parts:

1. Sun tracking

2. Panels cleaning

To track the sun,  four Light Dependent Resistor (LDR) sensors will be used. These sensors will be used to measure the intensity of the incident light in four directions i.e. North, South, East, and West. The sensors data will be given to an Arduino Nano microcontroller. The microcontroller will compare the values from the sensors and based on this comparison, decide the optimal orientation of the panel so the intensity of incident light is maximum. The system will be able to move both in horizontal and vertical directions. For achieving the desired dual-axis movement of the panel, two stepper motors will be used. These stepper motors will be driven by two stepper motor drivers which will take the input signal from the microcontroller and will interface the motor with the microcontroller. 

For cleaning the panels, brushes will be used which will be moved by the motor. The cleaning will take place after a set period.

Before practical hardware implementation, the system will be modeled and simulated in MatLab Simulink and Proteus software.

Benefits of the Project

The proposed system will benefit the user by improving the generation capacity of the solar panels which will eventually help in fulfilling the growing demand for electrical energy. Moreover, with the enhanced performance of solar panels, more users will be attracted to solar energy which is a clean and green renewable energy resource ultimately helping us prevent pollution in the environment, and controlling climate change.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

The final deliverable i.e. the Solar Trackng and Cleaning System will use four Light Dependent Resistor sensors, an Arduino Nano microcontroller board, 2 stepper motor drivers, 2 stepper motors with step angle of 1.8 deg/step, 2 brushes.

Final Deliverable of the Project

Hardware System

Core Industry

Energy

Other Industries

Core Technology

Clean Tech

Other Technologies

Sustainable Development Goals

Affordable and Clean Energy, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, Partnerships to achieve the Goal

Required Resources

If you need this project, please contact me on contact@adikhanofficial.com