TY - JOUR ID - TI - Microcontroller-Based Sun Path Tracking System AU - Nasir Ahmed Filfil AU - Deia Halboot Mohussen AU - Khamis A. Zidan PY - 2011 VL - 29 IS - 7 SP - 1345 EP - 1359 JO - Engineering and Technology Journal مجلة الهندسة والتكنولوجيا SN - 16816900 24120758 AB - The objective of this paper is to design and construct a solar tracking systembased on a microcontroller. The system design depends on some mathematicalequations to send three signals to drive circuit to change the position of the solarcell by changing the polarity of two motors. These mathematical equations are usedto compute the solar height angle (elevation) and the solar horizon angle (azimuth),whereas the usage of the fixed solar cells does not accomplish the desired object,that means the use of fixed solar cells does not grant a suitable output during a dayand a season, where the sun position differs at the morning to the noon and at thesetting of the sun, this is due to the spherical shape of Earth and to its rotationaround the sun.The solar cell is controlled vertically and horizontally at period equal to onehour, whereas the stored data that denote of the sun position is computed each hourfrom the sunrise to the sunset, the amount of the stored data is different from a dayto another, this variation is produced by the difference of day length during theyear, whereas the amount of computed data at the summer is more than the amountof computed data at the winter. The microcontrollers vouch for processing the dataand issue the commands to actuators to change the orientation of the solar cell. Allobtained results are very acceptable, when the system has tested in certain days. Byusing the microcontroller, the project efficiency is improved, and the cost ofhardware is reduced.

ER -