Advanced Controller for Single Axis Solar Tracking System

Abstract

Society is more reliant on traditional energy sources, and the percentage of power use is rising every day. Continuation of this trend could lead to the demise of traditional energy sources within a few years. So, now would be the moment to use renewable energies. The most environmentally friendly and long-term renewable energy is the solar energy. It is possible to capture the energy of the sun by employing a solar panel. Many factors influence the rate at which a solar panel generates energy, like the irradiance of sunlight and the temperature of the material. Hence more sunshine the solar panel receives, the more power it generates. Because a sun's location in the sky varies throughout the day, a fixed solar panel can't detect the greatest amount of sunlight throughout the daylight hours. The solar panel must have an automatic tracking mechanism to guarantee that it receives the maximum amount of sunlight. This paper aims to design an autonomous solar tracking system and make the solar panel rotate depending on the sunlight direction. As an advanced controller for the tracking system, the Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) is selected. The solar panel is tilted to the desired angle by this controller. The conventional Proportional Integral Derivative controller is also employed and compared with the ANFIS controller. The controller's performance is evaluated by comparing the controller's time characteristics and errors. In both set point tracking and disturbance rejection, the simulated results suggest that the ANFIS controller is the optimum choice for a solar tracking system.