microcontroller based solar panel tracking system

[taiyos]

thank you all of you ,for your advices

at this time i cannot change the design i mean the stepper or the sensors ....,cause i have to submit the final report soon.so if u can concentrate your advices on what i have to do on the existing design it would be much better.and can i make the micro sleep and wake up any time i want for a definite period?any body who know the hi tech c compiler syntax,would you give me the code....and i have some problems on the delay routine.

thank you;

[THE_RB]

Originally Posted by strantor

...
I was looking into making a solar panel sun tracking system with an arduino last year and found that the light sensor type approach is prone to all kinds of problems, like clouds moving, light reflections from other things, sensors becoming dirty, etc.
...

That's where the PIC can cover the flaws of a sensor system. It knows roughly how many degrees per hour the sun moves through, and can move to a "close enough" position after each 5 minute sleep cycle. Then feedback from the 2 sensors allows a small extra movement. It will phase lock to the sun with no problems, but in case of a bad sensor reading it will still be within a degree or so of the perfect location.

The big benefit is that it does not need to know what time of day it is or what day of the year it is.

Originally Posted by strantor

...
with a little math your PIC can calclute exactly where the sun is, even if there's an eclipse. You just have to tell it where its (GPS coordinates, elevation), and what time it is. You can get snazzy and put a GPS unit on it...
...

Thta is a big drawback needing a real time clock that is always correct. Sure a GPS clock will solve that nicely, but at quite a cost and might be delicate in an external environment.

Originally Posted by taiyos

...
at this time i cannot change the design i mean the stepper or the sensors ....,cause i have to submit the final report soon.so if u can concentrate your advices on what i have to do on the existing design it would be much better.and can i make the micro sleep and wake up any time i want for a definite period?any body who know the hi tech c compiler syntax,would you give me the code....and i have some problems on the delay routine.

You can probably leave the PIC running as it only uses a couple of mA. Then generate the timed period using a timer interrupt. That will make a very accurate 1 second period;

  // C code for a 1 second period with a 1MHz timer (4MHz xtal); 
  // uses 1 variable; unsigned long bres
  // gets here every TMR0 int (every 256 ticks)

  bres += 256;// add 256 ticks to bresenham total

  if(bres >= 1000000)// if reached 1 second!
  {
    bres -= 1000000;// subtract 1 second, retain error
    do_1sec_event();// update clock, etc
  }

Select All

You can use that code in your TMR0 interrupt that occurs every 256uS.

Suggestion on solar tracking algorithm;
(sun moves 360' per day or 15' per hour, that is about 1.25' every 5 minutes)
1. every 5 minutes move 1.1 degrees (leaves 0.15 degrees error).
2. check sensors, if west>east move another 0.3 degrees.

The result is that every 5 minutes it will move either 1.1 degrees or 1.4 degrees, and the input from the sensors will keep it phase locked to the sun.

Anyway, that is a starting point.

[taiyos]

how can i wake up a pic micro from sleep?
i mean when the sun rises in the morning.

[russpatterson]

Only put the PIC to sleep for five minutes at a time (or something like that). On wake-up, check if the Sun's shining. If not, go back to sleep for five minutes. Your PIC will only be running for a total of a few seconds per night and use very little power.

[GetDeviceInfo]

or, run your sensors through a window comparator which interrupts the micro when west angled sensor excedes east angled sensor, then step until comparator flips back.

[taiyos]

i have tried the comparator method but i coudnt wake the micro up....,i don know may be the error is on the code.so do u have any suggestion. i was writing the code in ccs c language.