Super Solar Searcher

Inspiration

Maximize the power output of a solar panel by actively pointing it towards the sun.

What it does

The solar panel is mounted on an axis and a servo rotates it. 2 photoresistors are attached to each side of the panel to detect the direction of light and it moves accordingly.

Business Viability

Currently it is usually more viable to install more solar panels than implementing a tracking system to get more energy out of fewer panels. This is fine when space is not an issue, but when space is limited the clear winner is a good tracking system like we have developed. We could make a company specializing in limited space solar arrays and creative solutions to optimize cases where building roofs not always in direct sunlight and other small solar projects that otherwise would not come to fruition with normally mounted panels.

How I built it

The 2 photoresistors measure the light intensity and based on the difference in signals, the panel rotates in a direction which minimizes the difference. The resistance of the photoresistor and the voltage across the solar panel is measured using an analog inputs to an Arduino Uno.

Note on panel measurement: The panel doesn't have a load on it so the voltage output is not exactly the power generated, but we believe it is useful in showing the relative benefits of our system.

Challenges I ran into

Creating a mechanical design for the servo motor to rotate the panel.
Troubleshooting servo motor issue that would cause it to violently jolt back to 90 degrees at the start of the program.
Organizing the cables on our breadboard.
Making stir fry for a lot of people in 1 wok.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

We were able to make the panel follow the light source accurately.
We ran a test to measure the average output voltage of the panel with and without rotation. Without rotation the voltage was 1.5 V, and with rotation the the voltage was 2.5 V. A 66% increase in open circuit voltage!