Towards a novel sensorless dual axis solar tracking algorithm for Bangladeshi PV modules

Abstract

There have been different types of solar trackers employing different algorithms and techniques. Nevertheless most of them adopt the use of different types of solar radiation sensors to detect the position of the sun over the sky. Consequently these algorithms introduce the use of advanced mathematics and complex hardware. In this paper, the authors propose a much simpler algorithm which uses no sensor and no advanced mathematics. The approximate positions of the sun over the sky in Bangladesh from 9.00 AM to 3.00 PM have been calculated for 365 days. Then linear quantization technique has been applied to define the optimum altitude and azimuths of the sun at each hour considering a step size of 10 degrees. These optimum altitude and azimuth angles can be fed to a simple low cost microcontroller for controlling the movement of the motors used in the tracker.