Design on Real Time Control for Dual Axis Solar Tracker for Mobile Robot

Nowadays, solar powered technology is commonly used in many industries and many application. The example of applications that powered by solar energy such as home appliances, mobile robot and surveillance system. Other than that, solar energy is also used for recharging robot’s battery. The problem that can be seen now is most of the solar panel in many application just in static condition. In order to maximize the solar energy received from the sun, the solar panel has to be positioned perpendicular to the sun. Thus, the tracking of the sun’s location and positioning of the solar panel is important. So, the project that wants to develop here is called “Solar Tracking System for Mobile Robot”. In order to obtain the maximum solar energy received, the robot system consist a few process. First, four light dependent resistor (LDR) will sense the intensity of light and the value received from LDR will be sent to Arduino microcontroller. Then, the solar tracker will adjust the position of solar panel by measuring the differences between the LDRs and adjust the servo motor that used to move the solar panel perpendicular to the sun. There are two servo motor, vertically mounted (to move Z-axis angle) and horizontally mounted (to move Z-axis angle) used to move the solar panel position. Then, solar panel will collect solar energy and convert solar power to electrical power. The energy received from solar panel will be auto buck boosted to 12 V to charge 7.4 V battery that is used for the usage of the mobile robot and solar tracker itself using Lithium Polymer charger adapter. The battery will be charged and used at the same time. On the robot, there is LCD that will display voltage received by solar panel and battery percentage. Overall, this project will help any battery powered mobile robot to recharge itself using dual-axis solar tracker and prevent energy insufficient while receiving maximum amount of energy available from sun.