The 9th International Renewable Energy Congress (IREC 2018)

Simple Design and Implementation of Solar

tracking System Two Axis with Four Sensors for
Baghdad city

Falah I. Mustafa*, Sarmid Shakir Faiz F. Mustafa, Athmar thamer naiyf

Solar energy research center, Automated Manufacturing Engineering Department
Renewable energy Directorate, Khwarizmi college of Engineering
Higher education and scientific research Ministry University of Baghdad
Baghdad, Iraq Baghdad, Iraq
Email:[email protected] [email protected],
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract— The main goal of increasing the efficiency is to get

the maximum power from the solar panel .The project is to I. INTRODUCTION
design and implementation simple and cheap price solar Solar energy is the most inexhaustible, renewable source of
tracker system with two axes (azimuth angle as well as altitude
energy known to humanity. In order to increase the
angle) using Light Dependent Resistor (LDR) with real
dimensions the project composed of solar panel, two-motor
efficiency of solar energy systems, solar tracker is added at
satellite dish and ball-joint, LDR sensor module and an the expense of system’s complexity and cost. The two basic
electronic circuit. This project is compared with fixed solar categories of trackers are single axis and dual axis. Single
panel and the results showed that solar tracker more output axis tracker has one axis of freedom, vertical or horizontal.
power than fixed solar panel. The project is divided into two Dual axis tracker has both a vertical and a horizontal axis of
parts; hardware and electronic. Hardware part generally freedom, so it able to track the position of the sun precisely.
composed of solar panel, two-DC motors with gearbox and A prototype of the automatic two-axis solar tracking system
LDR sensor module. Second part is electronic circuit. In this with a new design of sun-position tracker mechanism. Two
work sensing of the sun position carried out in two stages, first angle sensors are used to measure the physical angles on
stage or direct sensing performed via set of LDR sensors as both outlet shafts of azimuth and elevation to make sure the
output tuning to trims the azimuth and altitude angles. second desired angles are reached. Set of four LDR light sensor are
stage, when the weather is cloudy, dusty or rain, the tracking
used to trim the errors of altitude and azimuth angles, as
system will stop so the system stay in the position of the sun
without move but according to Kelly cosine relation the power
shown in the figure 1.
will decrease according to Iraq - Baghdad city weather because
we have about 10-15 rainy days that every day have (2-4) hours
have cloudy and rain. The energy extracted from photovoltaic
(PV) or any solar collector depends on solar irradiance. For
maximum extraction of energy from the sun, the solar collector
panel should always be normal to the incident radiation Solar
trackers moves the solar collector to follow the sun path and
keeps the orientation of the solar collector at an optimal tilt
angle. Solar tracking system improves substantially the energy
efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) panel. In this paper, an Fig. 1. Azimuth and Altitude angles
automatic dual axis solar tracking system is designed and
developed using Light Dependent Resistor (LDR) and DC As a result of experiments the power generated by the
motors on a mechanical structure with gear arrangement. The proposed tracking system is increased in the overall of about
results indicated that the automatic solar tracking system is 10% ~ 40% more than fixed angle system in general. The
more reliable and efficient than fixed one.
increase of the output power from solar panel increases the
efficiency of the system and increase this output power
Keywords - LDR; Photovoltaic (PV) panel; Dual-Axis Solar
Tracking System; Azimuth angle; Elevation angle. whenever the solar radiation fell on the solar panel
perpendicularly, but The earth revolves around the sun
throughout the year, so the position of the sun changes
constantly in the sky, the angle of solar radiation falling on
the ground also changes, as the various solar applications
978-1-5386-0998-9/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE need to fall solar radiation vertically on its surface.
The theoretical value of altitude and azimuth angles are cause it the effective way to track the sun in elevation and
translated into digital commands for driving DC motors to azimuth angles.
the corresponding position. Then, the system automatically
trims the altitude and azimuth angle of the PV panel
according to feedback signal of the proposed LDR sensor
module. The sunlight sensor module consists of four LDR-
sensors. Two angle sensors are placed on outlet shafts of
altitude and azimuth angles for measuring the final value of
altitude and azimuth angles and transmitting these values to
the supervisory computer user interface [1-3].
The Kelly cosine value relationship between relative current
generated from solar panel and sun incidence angle in degree
as shown in the figure 2.

Fig. 3. The complete system

some electronic part for tracking electronic circuit:

Component of project
Two solar panels 80 watt has length 120 cm and width 54
cm, Silicon polycrystalline type.
Two electrical motors satellite dish actuator
Four LDR (Light Dependent Resistor)
charge controller
Fig. 2. Kelly cosine values relationship two IC LM324
The mechanical part:
So we need a specific mechanism that moves the solar The mechanical structure of the solar tracking system
system and makes it follow the solar radiation falling from consists of fixed parts and movable parts to allow the system
the sun on the surface of the earth, This mechanism is a solar to track the movement of the sun throughout the day during
tracker, a device that makes the payloads (photovoltaic the year. The structure is designed to be portable to carry the
panel, parabolic troughs, Fresnel reflectors, lenses or the system as well as be resistant to natural elements such as
mirrors of a heliostat) oriented toward the sunbeam to get heat and wind, as the system is stay outdoor.
most of the radiation energy that falls on the surface of the
panel or collector to increase the converted energy. The
majority of the solar panels that are done in our nation are
fixed, however fixed systems can collect the maximum
power for a few hours through days but the solar tracker can
follow the sun from sunrise to sunset all day through a year
The solar trackers have several types that depend on their
mechanism for tracking the Sun trajectory on one or two
axes Single axis tracking and Dual axis tracking

II. SOLAR TRACTING SYSTEM DESCRIPTION

The main task is the design and implementation of solar

tracking system in outdoor in Baghdad(longitude (44.43),
latitude (33.33)). To achieve maximum output power that
produced by solar panels as the sun moving across the sky
and keeps the panel perpendicular to the radiation sun. We
used two-axis solar tracking system with active tracking
Fig. 4. Show the part of mechanical structure
 When all the sensors are in the shade, the motor stands in a
The first part of the design of the structure is the strong base relaxed state.
that can be carried the solar panel with motors, and also can
be moved to change the place of the system, at the center of
the base is placed a column. At the other end of the column
set shaft with 60Ûangle and in the end of shaft placed ball
joint that connected with the solar penal Which allows the
system to move to track the movement of the sun. Two arms
are connected to the column that used to carry the motors
and the other side of motors connected to solar panel by
ball joint. The first motor is responsible for vertical
movement angle elevation from north to south and is
connected in the middle of the wide edge of the solar panel.
The second motor is responsible for the horizontal
movement azimuth angle from east to west and is connected
to the solar panel at a distance from the small edge of the
penal ,the reason for that to securing the largest angle of
movement of the system when followed the sun from east to
west.
The electronic part: Fig. 6. box of electronic circuit
Solar cells work to give more energy and better efficiency
when they are at the right angle with the sun means solar In our project we needed four sensors that were designed in
radiation falling vertically on the solar cell, That happens by the vertical way. A LDR sensor was placed in the end side
using a solar tracking system that uses sensors that are and installed on the edge of the solar panel as in Figure (7).
detected the sunlight. The sensors are connected with an
electronic circuit that receives and interprets the desired
action which in turn commands the motor to move in
clockwise or anticlockwise to track the sun potion and keep
the solar panel in directly with the sun. The electronic circuit
works as a comparator to keep the mater at the ideal location
as long as the solar radiation falling on the sensor is equally
mean under the same level of illumination

Fig. 7. position of four LDR sensors

To Knowing the error ratio in tracking system of the sun we

design and drew 10 circles with colors and put metal bar in
the medal, each circle represents one degree. A form has
been made to calculate the error as shown in the figure (8).

Fig. 5. Electronic circuit of tracking system

But when the position of the sun changes, the level of

illumination on the sensor will change and one of them
becomes under the shadow, which gives information to the
motor in turn, and when it reaches the same amount of light
falls on the sensors, the motor returns to the dormant state,
Fig. 8. circles of errors
 III. SOLAR TRACTING SYSTEM DESCRIPTION plastic box covered with tin foil is used for covering the
A. Schematic arranging electronic control circuit. Two DC motors with gearbox
The main goal of this project is to design a very precise solar arrangement are used to obtain the required movements.
tracker. The project is divided into two parts; hardware and Also, aluminum structure is used to hold the solar panel.
software. The main constituents of the tracking system are
shown in Figure2. Hardware part generally composed of IV. RESULTS AND DISSCUSSION
solar panel, two-DC motors with gearbox, LDR sensor
module and electronic circuit. Software part represents the Two solar panels were tested. One of them fixed and the
thinking behavior of the system, that is how the system other placed on the solar tracking system that was executed.
acting under several weather conditions. The fixed panel is fixed at the local latitude(33Û). The test
was done in May and July (2017) in Baghdad, Iraq (latitude
44 latitude 33) over four days from 6 am to 6 pm The
measurement was taken every 15 minutes.

Fig. 9. System design block diagram

B-Sun position sensing method used in the control circuit

To track the sun it is vital to locate the position of the sun
accurately. In this work sensing of the sun position carried
out in two stages primary and secondary. Primary stage or
indirect sensing performed via sun-earth relationship as a
coarse adjustment and second stage or direct sensing
performed via set of LDR sensors as output tuning to trims
the azimuth and altitude angles. If the weather is cloudy or
dusty, the tracking system uses primary stage or sun-earth
geometrical relationships only to identify the location of the
sun; so the system tracks the position of the sun regardless
the weather condition. LDR sensor module consists of four Fig. 10. Tracking and fixed solar panel
light dependent resistor or cadmium sulphide cell; LDR is a
resistor whose resistance decreases with increase in light In the test, the current and voltage from the solar panel were
intensity. These four LDR are placed on a circular plate and calculated that occur by placing a load (Two lamps 12 volts
separated by 90 degree space rotation through perpendicular 70w, 21w),To calculate the current and voltage used by the
rectangular plastic sheets. If one of the LDR gets more light load of the solar panel and showed the results as in Figures
intensity than the others, node voltage difference will be (11-12).
received as analog signal at the ADC (analog to digital
converter) channel, this data and generates a logic signal to
actuate the motor to move the tracker to a position where
equal light is being illuminated on pair of LDRs.
The sensors generate logic signal for azimuth as well as
altitude angles and motor rotation in either clockwise or anti-
clockwise direction depending on the shadow on LDRs due
to rectangular plastic sheets. If all the four LDRs are equally
illuminated by the sun, then the analog voltage signals
received at the ADC channel of the microcontroller will
have equal values and the microcontroller will not generate
any logic signal to actuate the motors.

C-Mechanical structure depiction

The whole mechanical structure of the proposed dual axis
solar tracking system is shown in Figure 4.LDR sensor Fig. 11. Current-time solar panel with and without tracking
module is attached in a plane parallel with solar collector. A
 resulting powers generated of both systems as shown in
figure (14).The power efficiency is 35% increase in solar
tracking system than in solar fixed system.
V. CONCLUSIONS
As solar energy is considered one of the main sources of
energy in the near future, In this paper, we give a simple and
concise overview of the solar tracking mechanism to improve
the solar gain energy, also the costs of the solar tracker
operation and cost maintenance is relatively low. In this paper,
Design and implementation of solar tracker with two axes that
Use in motor satellite dish to track the sun accurately and use
LDR sensor to determine the intensity of falling sunlight. We
found that the solar tracking system is more effective than the
fixed solar panel. The energy gained from the solar panel with
the dual tracker exceeds 35% of the energy gained from the
Fig. 12. Voltage - time of solar panel with and without tracking
fixed solar panel, In analyzing the data, the energy gained
from the solar tracker is mostly in the morning and in the
We also calculated the solar radiation value on the solar
evening because at noon time there is little difference and this
panels that results of the solar tracking system was 56%
proves that the fixed solar panel is efficient during noon time
increase than in solar panel fixed as shown in Figure 13.
only. The dual-axle solar tracking system is efficient as it can
be placed anywhere and ensure a high energy gain.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The researcher would like to express the profound sense of

appreciation to: Solar Energy Research Center / Renewable
Energy Directorate / Ministry of Science and Technology;
for their invaluable support and constructive directions.

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Fig. 13. Solar radiation with time in solar panel with and without tracking sunlight/suns-position
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Fig. 14. Power generated for solar system with and without tracking

And also the error rate in the system does not exceed 5%.
We calculate the efficiency of PV Panel in both systems
with tracking and without by Comparison between the