I have made a project Dual Axis Solar Tracker using Arduino to align the solar panel towards the higher density of Sun light. I have used a ATMEGA168 controller IC for programming, and two servo motor for movement of solar panel. It was now also available on EngineersGarage having the link- http://www.engineersgarage.com/contribution/how-to-make-a-solar-tracker. Check this out as well.

1. DUAL AXIS SOLAR
TRACKER USING ARDUINO
Submitted to: - Submitted by: -
Mr. Vaibhav Sharma Mr. Swetansh M.
Shrivastava
ELECTRONICS & COMMUNICATION
RAJ KUMAR GOEL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

2. CONTENTS:
 Introduction
 Component description
 AVR IC – ATMEGA168
 Sensors
 Tracking mechanism

3. INTRODUCTION
Solar energy is a very large, inexaustable source of energy.
The power from the sun intercepted by the earth is
approximatel 1.8*1011 MW.
Solar energy could supply all the present and future energyb
needs of the world on a continuing basis. This makes it one
of the most promising of the unconventional energy
sources.

4. PROBLEM WITH SOLAR
 Problem associated with the use of solar energy
is that its availability varies widely with time. The
variation in availability occurs daily because of
the day night cycle and also seasonally because
of the earth’s orbit around the sun.
To rectify these above problems the solar panel
should be such that it always receive maximum
intensity of light.

5. INTRODUCTION
Solar Tracker: -
 Solar trackers are devices used to orient photovoltaic
panels, reflectors, lenses or other optical devices toward the
sun.
 Since the sun’s position in the sky changes with the seasons
and the time of day, trackers are used to align the collection
system to maximize energy production.

6. Dual Axis Tracker:
 Dual axis trackers have two degrees of freedom that act as
axes of rotation. These axes are typically normal to one
another.
 Dual axis trackers allow for optimum solar energy levels
due to their ability to follow the sun vertically and
horizontally.
 Here we have divide sun position into five areas and those
are EAST, WEST, NORTH, SOUTH, CENTER.

7. Arduino Severino Board
 Arduino is a development platform for the purpose of
programing AVR microcontrollers.
 Arduino Severino board is used to program 28 pin DIP
ATMEGA168 IC.
 Here we are using 16MHz crystal for operating frequency.

8. ARDUINO SEVERINO BOARD:

9. ATMEGA168:
 The ATMEGA168 is a modified Harvard architecture 8-bit
RISC single chip microcontroller which was developed
by Atmel in 1996.
 Features: -
 Flash : 16KB
 EEPROM : 1024B
 SRAM : 512B
 Clock freq. : upto 20MHz
 Supply voltage : 2.8-5.5V
 Ext. Interrupt : 24
 PWM : 6

11. Sensor:
 We are using LDR’s as a sensor to track the position of sun
or density of sun light.
 Here we have made potential
divider with LDR and register.
 Output voltage (Vo)is proportional
to light incident on LDR which is
further processed to move solar
panel.
 Here we are using five sensors to
Track Sun position.

12. Servo Motor:
 Servo motors has three wires.
 Among those 3 wires, 2 wires provide power supply to the
motor and one is used to send PWM signals {50Hz (analog
servos) or 400-500Hz (digital servos)} to the motor for
required shaft positions.
 Servo shaft is rotated by an angle depending on the ON-
Time and OFF-time of the pulse.
 Here we are using two servo motors- One for Horizontal
movement and another for Vertical movement.

13. Servo motor

14. Tracking Mechanism:
EAST- West
movement
North – South
movement

16. Thanks for Watching…
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