Automated Solar Platform

Inspiration

The theme of the Technothon was automation. We believed that a lot of solar panels may have the issue of being less efficient during different parts of the day due to the movement of the sun. So, we thought that building a prototype for a solar panel platform that could automatically rotate was a good, achievable project idea for this year's Technothon.

What it does

Our prototype uses two photoresistors to detect the light intensity of specific areas in the sky. When the sun moves across the sky, the Arduino Uno uses the data from the photoresistors to rotate the platform towards the area of the sky with the greatest light intensity. Our prototype also includes a push button that switches between day and night mode. During night mode, the platform resets to a default position and the motor does not move.

How we built it

This design was built around the Arduino Uno microcontroller. The core of our design is the two light-sensing photoresistors on either side of the top plate, which provide our system an analog input for the ambient lighting conditions. Most of the building materials that were used to assemble our prototype was styrofoam. On one of the pillars, we mounted a motor that would be able to rotate our solar panel platform.

We also placed a breadboard below the solar platform. This breadboard contains a push button that switches between the day and night mode. It also contains the LEDs that indicate which mode the solar platform is operating in.

Challenges we ran into

Multitasking using Arduino was an issue that arose near the end of the project. This occurred when designing a system to continuously scan for user input while also waiting a certain amount of time for another task. This issue was somewhat mitigated by using the integrated system clock on the Arduino microprocessor to control the timing of certain actions, as opposed to functions that paused the program as a whole.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of achieving a functioning prototype that mostly matched our initial vision in the three weeks that we spent designing it. We were able to achieve a solar platform that responds to the brightness of the sky, and we also added the ability for the solar platform to switch between night and day mode. This was our group’s first Technothon, so we were very satisfied when we completed the project.

What we learned

This project helped expose our team to many aspects of Arduino system design, such as using analog and digital inputs, effective coding practices for Arduino, driving various loads such as LEDs, motors, etc., as well as user input devices such as push-buttons.

What's next for Automated Solar Platform

Given more time, our project could likely improve in the following ways: first, the reliability of the push-button input could have been greatly improved, as our design contains no solution for switch bouncing (a debounce circuit could have been integrated), as well as some faulty behavior depending on the timing of the button press. Additionally, with more materials available, our solution for integrating the light sensors could have been more elegant, with photoresistors more securely positioned and affixed to the top plate.

Built With

• arduino