My question Here is Which are the angle need to consider & why.
How could track sun based on These angle.
As links attached above says i.e zenith & azimuth angle use to measure direction of sun & altitude to postion.Which are angle need to consider & why???
In all arduino based tracker they used LDR and moving along zenith and azimuth . Since i am using inclinometer , how considered angle
AMPS-N:
My question Here is Which are the angle need to consider & why.
How could track sun based on These angle.
You need to know your current position and the current time. You need to calculate the direction of the sun at that position and time, for example as an azimuth angle and zenith/elevation angle. You need to position your actuators to point your device in that direction. You need to repeat this periodically so that the device tracks the sun as it moves. I'm sorry if it sounds patronising to explain something so basic after you've spent this much time working on a solar tracker, but from the way you keep asking about it I'm not at all sure you have grasped the concept.
if i am not wrong . I cant also express what i have understood due improper sentence
Please answer with yes or no. If not why??
These points are expected or not
zenith and azimuth gives sun direction right ya wrong??
altitude give sun elevation angle right ya wrong??
3)for dual axis tracker i need to consider azimuth along x dir that circular and altitude angle y direction for vertical motion.
The respective angle for day is attached in below . it relevant to one day. ?? Please let me know whether i calculated right or wrong.
formula taken from herehttp://www.susdesign.com/popups/sunangle/altitude.php
You need to know your current position and the current time. You need to calculate the direction of the sun at that position and time, for example as an azimuth angle and zenith/elevation angle. You need to position your actuators to point your device in that direction. You need to repeat this periodically so that the device tracks the sun as it moves. I'm sorry if it sounds patronising to explain something so basic after you've spent this much time working on a solar tracker, but from the way you keep asking about it I'm not at all sure you have grasped the concept.
current time : is calculate from RTC
current position?: still not confirmed
i considered azimuth and altitude angles to determine position.
since actuator as no feedback , i am using inclinometer to adjust angle from reference 0~360 degree and 0~90 degree.
Yes. The azimuth angle conceptually gives you an arrow along the ground which points towards the sun. The zenith/altitude angle tells you how far the sun is above the horizon. Together, the azimuth and zenith/altitude angles give you the information needed to point towards the sun in three dimensions.
Yes, but you need to understand that the zenith angle and altitude angle are two different ways to express the same thing - zenith angle is the angle down from vertical, and altitude angle is the angle up from horizontal.
Your English is a bit mangled but if I understand you correctly then yes, this is correct.
If you want to validate your calculated azimuth and zenith/altitude angle then do the calculation for the current time and position, and see whether the result correctly points to the sun.
AMPS-N:
How to check Whether postion i calculated is pointing toward the sun.Here iam attaching output xls i got from nrel .
If i am wrong let me know.
The zenith and azimuth columns for the rows you highlighted look credible for a position in the southern hemisphere that was within about eight degrees of the equator, with dawn slightly before 06:00 and dusk slightly before 19:00. You could verify them yourself just by checking whether each pair of figures accurately reflects the position of the sun at that time.
The zenith and azimuth columns for the rows you highlighted look credible for a position in the southern hemisphere that was within about eight degrees of the equator, with dawn slightly before 06:00 and dusk slightly before 19:00. You could verify them yourself just by checking whether each pair of figures accurately reflects the position of the sun at that time.
is there any software to check it so i can verify answer.
AMPS-N:
is there any software to check it so i can verify answer.
No.
You're thinking about this the wrong way. The way to tell whether the angles you calculated accurately reflect the actual position of the sun is to compare them with the actual position of the sun. Stand outside. See where the sun is. Estimate the azimuth and zenith angles for its actual position. Compare that to the calculated values.
If it is too much trouble to go outside and compare your calculated position with the actual position of the sun, compare your results to the results of the NOAA solar position calculator, which works everywhere on Earth: ESRL Global Monitoring Laboratory - Global Radiation and Aerosols
If the results differ in any significant way, your program is not working correctly.
I have tested With Nrel code, NOAA data. I found azimuth and zenith angle are almost equal.
Question i am asking here is Which are two angles need to be considered for dual axis tracker??
If it single axis tracker we consider altitude/ elevation angle to measure angle.
AMPS-N:
I got all my angle correctly. I am facing problem to convert inclinometer sensor out put.for 360 degree format.
I assume you mean you know how to calculate the sun's position in terms of azimuth and zenith/altitude angles.
You don't say what the inclinometer is to be used for. I guess you're trying to measure the zenith/altitude angle of your tracker so that you can use a closed loop feedback controller to steer it to the sun's altitude/zenith angle. Is that correct? If so, you need to know how the values you get from the inclinometer relate to the tracker's zenith/altitude angle. You can establish that just by seeing what readings you get as you physically move the sensor.
I don't see how an inclinometer reading would involve 360 degrees so perhaps I've misunderstood what you're trying to do with it.
i build a antena tracker working on one rssi signal ,, why not use a light sensor for tracking the most voltage coming in 2 the solar pannel ,,
i have build in option , for scanning the stronges analog input voltage , every motor step it wil record the voltages in to the eprom mem , after the sweep it wil go to the strongest position found in memory , soem friend uses this for his solar pannel
Dexterbot:
every motor step it wil record the voltages in to the eprom mem , after the sweep it wil go to the strongest position found in memory , soem friend uses this for his solar pannel
Why save them in EEPROM? Surely it's the target position which needs to be persisted, not the instantaneous scan results. For a solar tracker where the answer is inherently changing, I don't see any reason to persist the answer either - after any reset you'd need to rescan anyway to find the new optimum. The scanning approach would also be inferior to using a pair of LDRs to tell you which direction to move towards the optimum, since that avoids needing to continuously hunt to find the optimum as it moves through the day.
when you have it in memory and you know the tracking time of the sun you can ad this every time , and you onley need to boot it first ,, to find pos ,, lol