Presentation:

The educational Solar Tracker is inspired by an industrial solar tracker. The educational version consists of 3D-printed mechanical parts and industrial mechanical and electronic components.

The Solar Tracker, equipped with incremental encoders, tracks the light source on 2 axes, guided by 4 sensors. A control delay is added to reduce movement and optimize energy consumption.

Electronic specifications:

• 6V/1000mA/h solar panel
• Electronic board integrating two motor drivers and two microcontroller modules
• Microcontroller programmed in C for fast acquisition tasks (measurement of motor speed and current)
• Microcontroller programmable in Python for servo control management and the possibility of implementing a PID controller, among other things
• DFRobot 5V Solar Power Manager module for battery charge management
• Lithium battery

Mechanical characteristics:

The test bench allows the light source to be moved along three axes: elevation, tilt, and rotation

The incremental encoders have a resolution of 2000 points per revolution

Each movement can be locked so that only one of them is used.

The movements are recorded and can be compared to the movements of the Solar Tracker, allowing deviations to be analyzed.

Educational activities:

• Functional analysis
• Kinematics
• Energy
• Statics
• Dynamics
• Servo control
• Python programming

Reference:

S2I//2100: T-SOL SI/STI2D 2-axis solar tracker with speed and position control