AN AUTOMATIC SINGLE AXIS SOLAR TRACKING SYSTEM USING ATMEGA 16 MICROCONTROLLER

摘要

The designing of a simple single axis automatic sun tracking system for the solar panel is presented. A low cost tracking system is constructed using microcontroller (ATMEL ATmega 16) which has inbuilt 10-bit ADC (Analog-to-digital-converter) to reduce the power consumption. This tracking system uses the voltage delivered to the load as a sensing parameter to orient the solar panel for normal incidence of sunrays. The continuous monitoring of load voltage by microcontroller with the help of ADC provides the instant tracking of sun. Experiment is conducted to verify the tracking capability of the model and the efficiencies of static solar panel and panel with tracking system are systematically investigated. The tracking system has shown the improvement in power conversion efficiency compared to static solar panel.