An Automated Data Acquisition System for the Characterization of Photovoltaic Cells

Abstract

This paper presents an automated data acquisition system that is specialized in obtaining the necessary information for the characterization of solar cells. The main feature of the acquisition system proposed by us is the use of a switch unit, which allows switching between up to 5 photovoltaic cells during a test and the elimination of the errors caused by wire resistance by using a Kelvin connection for measurements. In addition to the acquisition of the data itself, our system also allows simulation of the real environment in which the photovoltaic cells operate. For this, the LOT - Quantum Design LSH302 solar simulator is used to stimulate solar cells with a luminous flux of 1 sun and the temperature of a solar cell is modified using a Votsch LabEvent T/20/40/3 climatic chamber. In order to validate this acquisition method, 20 repeated measurements for each channel were performed and compared to 20 repeated measurements made in a standard setup that does not use a switch unit.