Design and Experiment of a New Solar Automatic Tracking System

A new type of solar photovoltaic power generation automatic tracking system was designed in this paper. First of all, based on the principle of dual-axes tracking and the law of the sun trajectory, a novel parallel solar tracking mechanism was devised. The mechanism of automatic tracking system uses 3-DOF parallel structure and can track the sun all-round. Secondly, the control algorithm is studied by the mathematical model of parallel tracking mechanism and proposed the tracking strategy of the photoelectric tracking and sun trajectory tracking. In the sunny day, the sunlight is detected by photoelectric sensor and with the photoelectric tracking mode. In the rainy days, according to the calculation of the solar altitude angles and azimuth, the automatic tracking is used the construction of the data base and look-up table to track sun by software control method. Finally, the generating capacity of automatic tracking system experiment is carried on research. The experimental results show that the designed parallel tracking mechanism has a good performance and stable operation, also can realize all-round automatic tracking. The power generation of the new automatic tracking system has more power than two axes tracking 14.1%.