A self-powered sun tracking system based on a novel lignt direction sensor

We present a self-powered solar tracking system which can automatically adjust the location of the solar panels to optimize the energy harvesting. The solar panels supply power to the entire system, so there is no additional power. The solar panels, a motor, and a CMOS chip constitute the system. Considering the size and the cost, the new sensor and its circuit are integrated in a chip that is implemented by a standard 0.5μm process. We tested the system under the sun. The results indicate that the system is sensitive to the change of light direction and in a optical power range of 30-110 mW/cm2 the tracking accuracy can be as good as 1.8 degrees.

[1]  Shantanu Chakrabartty,et al.  A compressive piezoelectric front-end circuit for self-powered mechanical impact detectors , 2013, 2013 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS2013).

[2]  C. Liebe,et al.  MEMS based Sun sensor , 2001, 2001 IEEE Aerospace Conference Proceedings (Cat. No.01TH8542).

[3]  Hongjiang Song,et al.  On-chip sensor for light direction detection. , 2013, Optics letters.

[4]  Karen Abrinia,et al.  A review of principle and sun-tracking methods for maximizing solar systems output , 2009 .

[5]  F. J. Delgado,et al.  Accurate and Wide-Field-of-View MEMS-Based Sun Sensor for Industrial Applications , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.

[6]  W. Budde,et al.  Integrated sensor for light source position measurement applicable in SOI technology , 2007, ESSCIRC 2007 - 33rd European Solid-State Circuits Conference.

[7]  J. A. Chattha,et al.  A simple photo-voltaic tracking system , 2005 .