IOSR Journal of Applied Physics (IOSR-JAP)

e-ISSN: 2278-4861.Volume 9, Issue 2 Ver. II (Mar. – Apr. 2017), PP 53-60

www.iosrjournals.org

Efficient Single Axis Sun Tracker Design for Photovoltaic System

Applications
Hussain S. Akbar1*, Muayyad N. Fathallah2, Ozlim O. Raoof1
1
Physics Dept., College of Science, Kirkuk University, Kirkuk City, Iraq.
2
Electronic Dept., Kirkuk Technical College, Kirkuk City, Iraq.
*drhussainsalihakber@yahoo.com

Abstract: Solar energy is rapidly gaining importance as a source of renewable energies. Solar tracker system
enables be generated more solar energy by using photovoltaic solar cells. The degree of use the solar radiation
can be maximized by use of tracker system which can increase the enough efficiency. It receives the largest
amount of solar radiation incident when it is perpendicular to the solar panel. In this paper a one axis solar
tracker is designed and implemented to track the sun in azimuth axis by using an AVR microcontroller. The
implemented system consists mainly of the ATmega328 controller, DC motor, light sensors, relay and solar
panel. The results show that the designed low cost sun tracker increases the output power gain by 18-25% as
compared with the fixed panel located at a latitude angel (35.47°) of the Kirkuk city, Iraq. To increase the
amount of incident efficiency of solar radiation conversion from the panels of the sun tracker systems has been
changed by adding rear panel (back side) which is opposite to the in front panel and it was shows that the
efficiency of the output power increasing about (65%) compared with fixed panel and when adding the reflector
made of Aluminum foil as (a mirror) to the opposite panel (rear panel) the output power increased about (72%)
compared to fixed system. The overall power gains on our tracker system increased and become more efficient
by adding rear side panel and reflector.
Keywords - One axis tracker, Solar panel, LDR, Microcontroller, DC motor, Relay.

I. Introduction
Solar energy is the energy generated by harnessing the power of the solar radiation and is called photovoltaic
system [1]. Photovoltaic energy is the process of converting the sunlight directly to electricity using solar cell
[2]. Solar panels can be mounted as a fixed type or used as a tracker type. In the fixed type the solar panel
mounted on the surface of roof or ground irrespective of sun’s direction at a particular angle [3]. Solar tracker
can be divided in two types’ passive tracker and active tracker [4]. A solar tracker is an electronic and
mechanical device that is used to the maximize absorption of solar power by adjusting the solar panel
automatically to be perpendicular to the sun’s radiation [5]. The single axis tracking systems realizes the
movement of either azimuth or elevation for a solar power system as shown in Figure 1. The advantages of
single axis solar trackers are generally a lower cost than dual-axis trackers, higher reliability than dual-axis
trackers and higher lifespan than dual-axis trackers [6, 7].

Fig.1: One axis tracker system arrangement [8].

Dual axis tracking systems realize movement both along the azimuth and elevation axis as shown in Figure 2,
and are studied by many authors [9-10-11].

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 Efficient Single Axis Sun Tracker Design for Photovoltaic System Applications

Fig. 2: Dual axis tracker system arrangement [8].

Single axis tracker system technologies have been developed by authors [12-13-14] and the implementations of
the single axis tracker have done by many workers [15-16-17].
The object of this study is to design and implemented an efficient automated one axis sun tracker system and
can greatly improve the output power of PV for solar energy application, which is detailed in ref. [18].

II. Experimental Part

The proposed tracking system tracks the sun radiation by rotating the PV panel in one axis, in which the sun
rays are captured to the maximum output power by tracking system which moves at two different
directions ( East-West). The proposed model for single axis tracker in our study is shown in Figure 3.

Fig. 3: The proposed model for single axis tracker.

The single axis tracking system consists of: solar panel (polycrystalline) of 87 watt which is made by Kyocera;
model is KC85T-1 [19], and its area 65×100 cm2, two photo resistors Light Dependent Resistor (LDR),
Arduino Uno microcontroller ATmega328, one DC motor and two relays. DC motor and sensors are interfaced
with the microcontroller which is controlling DC motor is basically performing function of sun tracking on the
basis of photo sensor’s input. The LDR photo sensors sense the light intensity and send signal to the
microcontroller. The signal from the two sensors is always compared to detect any change in the value and then
converts to digital (ADC) through Arduino Uno and decides the rotation direction of the DC motor according to
the stored programing. This process explained in Figure 4 [20].

Fig. 4: Input sensing, microcontroller, DC motor units [20].

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 Efficient Single Axis Sun Tracker Design for Photovoltaic System Applications

Figure 5 shows the block diagram of the tracking system studied in present paper. The flow chart of the control
program is shown in Figure 6.

Fig. 5: Block Diagram of Tracking System.

Fig. 6: Flowchart of tracking algorithm for azimuth control of system.

Algorithm starts with taking data from LDRs photo sensors. The microcontroller read this data and made a
comparison between them and then decides about the movement direction of the DC motors.

The electronic circuit of the tracker system is shown in Figure 7.

Fig. 7: Electronic circuit of tracker system.

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 Efficient Single Axis Sun Tracker Design for Photovoltaic System Applications

III. Experimental Results

The two PV solar panels were used, one of them was stationary at fixed angle of 35.47° Kirkuk city latitude
where the other was fitted on the tracker system, the setup experimental is show in Figure 8.

(a) (b)

Fig. 8: Experimental setup (a: fixed system, b: tracker system).

2.1 Output Power Measurements

The monthly average hourly electrical output power of the two panels were calculated and plotted against the
local time during hours of the day (usually 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM) for three months May, June and November
were show in Figures (9,10,11) respectively.

120
Average Output

100
Power(Watt)

80
60
40 fixed
20 Single Axis
0
7 12 17
Time (Hour)

Fig. 9: Monthly average hourly variation of output power from fixed and tracking panels in month of
May 2016.

120
Average Output Power

100
80
(watt)

60
40 Fixed
20 Single Axis
0
7 9 11 13 15 17

Time(Hour)

Fig. 10: Monthly average hourly variation of output power from fixed and tracking panels in month of
June 2016.
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 Efficient Single Axis Sun Tracker Design for Photovoltaic System Applications

Fig. 11: Monthly average hourly variation of output power from fixed and tracking panels in month of
November 2016.

It shows in May, June and November months the fixed panel variation of the output power increases
gradually with time of day and reaches maximum value around 12-13 PM o’clock time and then decreases, but
in single axes tracking panel the output power increases rapidly jumped up from zero to maximum value and
approximately changes very little during the time except in the evening when the irradiance decreases slowly.
Solar tracking system is able to receive more sunlight and consequently generate more output power compared
to fixed panel because the radiation is perpendicular to the panel. It was shown that output power efficient up to
22.4%, 24.2%, 18.64% for the months May, June and November respectively compared with fixed panel.

2.2 Output Power Improvement

In order to get more efficiency of output power from PV solar panel of the tracker system in our
study, the modification of the tracker system has been changed by addition another solar panel parallel (back
side) and opposite to the first panel (in front side) as shown in Figure 12. The output power have been calculated
and plotted against the local time during hours of the day (9:00 AM-14:00 PM) for the month of November.

Fig. 12: Addition opposite (rear Side) panel setup arrangement.

Figure 13 shows the variation of the output power-versus-time (Hour) for the fixed panel (FP) , single axis panel
tracker (SPT), opposite panel tracker (OPT) and sum (SPT + OPT).It shows the output power from (SPT+OPT)
give about 56.49% higher output power than single axis panel tracker (SPT) and 64.60% compared with the
fixed panel (FP).

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 Efficient Single Axis Sun Tracker Design for Photovoltaic System Applications

250

Output Power(Watt)
200
150 P(W) SPT
100 P(W)OPT
50 P(W)SPT+OPT
0 P(W)FP
7 12 17
Time(Hour)

Fig. 13: Output power variation for the Opposite, Fixed, in front and Sum (In front +Rear side) panels
with local time.

Finally to improve the efficient power output from the tracker systems in our study the addition of the reflector
made of aluminum foil is located at a distance of 173cm from the rear side (back side panel), this reflector
works as a mirror, it function to reflect the sun radiation towards the opposite panel in order to collect more
radiation received from the diffused and albedo radiations. The modified designed tracker was explained in
Figure 14.

Fig. 14: One axis tracker including (in front, rear side panel and reflector) arrangement.

Figure15 shows the variation of the average output power versus- local time (Hour) for the fixed panel (FP),
single panel with opposite panel (SP+OP) without reflector and single panel with opposite panel and with
reflector (SP+OP+R). It shows that the output power in single axis with opposite panel and with reflector give
about 20.18% higher output than single axis with opposite panel and the later gives about 64.6% higher than
fixed panel.

300
Average Output
Power(watt)

200
P(W)S+O+R
100
P(W)OP+SP
0 P(w)FP
7 9 11 13 15 17

Time(hour)

Fig. 15: Comparison the output power variation of fixed, single + opposite panels and (Reflector + Rear
side Panel+ single panel) with Time.

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 Efficient Single Axis Sun Tracker Design for Photovoltaic System Applications

Figure 16 show the histogram curve for the percentage summary of the output power of the designed single axis
tracker with fixed and improvement of it by adding the rear side panel with reflectors.

Fig. 16: The Percentage of the Output Power for the Single Axis Tracker, Fixed Panel and addition rear
side Panel with Reflector in November 2016.

IV. Conclusions
Base on the obtained results we can conclude that the proposed technique for design and implement mono axis
sun tracker system the following points:
 Tracker system designed and manufactured with a single axis was practically a cheap cost of materials
available in local markets.
 The average external power from one axis tracker system designed in our study was improved by (18-25%)
compared with the fixed panel.
 The output power increased and improved by adding ear side panel and reflector about (65%) and (70-80%)
respectively.

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