Design & implementation of an automated dual-axis solar tracker with data-logging

Abstract

With the growing demand for energy worldwide, a drastic shortage of the non-renewable sources of energy will be observed in the future. Hence, there is a need to replace these resources with those that are renewable. For collecting solar energy, the current fixed configuration of solar panels is used which provides only 22 percent efficiency as it faces the sun only for a limited amount of time per day. In this work, an automated dual axis solar tracker design which also logs data such as solar irradiation, battery voltage and temperature on board has been designed and implemented. The solar tracker circuit uses an ATMega328, four LDRs, and two servo motors. The output voltage efficiency of the automated tracking configuration has been compared and analyzed with a fixed configuration solar panel tilted at an angle of 20 degrees.