Mobile Augmented Reality for Analysis of Solar Radiation on Facades.

The recent developments of mobile devices have enhanced the possibilities of applications of Augmented Reality (AR), namely, providing data visualization in situ. The application prototype presented in this paper, SolAR, designed for Android tablet devices, allows the user to extract financial and energy feedback from a photovoltaic system, simulating its placement on facades. Such a solution can either serve as a support tool for technicians and researchers in the area or it can be useful for the average user, contributing to the dissemination of the use of renewable energies. SolAR provides a view of the real world augmented with graphical representations of aggregated irradiation data drawn over the facades of buildings. Starting from the previous work, this paper presents the various additions made, particularly the possibility of adding matrices of photovoltaic (PV) modules to several facades of a building and the possibility of obtaining contextual data through a web service. A user study was carried out with 32 volunteers. It revealed that the participants were able to successfully place the PV modules to acquire the best energy efficiency and that the relevance of the new functionalities implemented as well as the usability of the application was positively assessed.