Solar Controller

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  Finished early? Add hardware!

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  Optimum awning angle calculated for KC

Inspiration. Saving energy in this day and age is extremely important. Not only does this help a home or business owner's budget on their energy bills but it also helps the planet at the same time by decreasing carbon emissions.

What it does. Our "SolarController" uses geolocation data (Latitude, Longitude, Time Zone) to calculate the precise location of the sun at any time of day, week, month, or year. Knowing the sun's location allows the program to determine the most optimum angle at which to set a window awning to minimize energy usage and lower utility costs. The program allows for both stationary awnings (will find the optimum angle to set throughout the entire year) and angle adjustable awnings (will continuously update throughout the day); a demonstration of this has been created with the use of an Arduino microcontroller. A simple user interface allows users to lookup 1 of 100 major US cities, set their ideal home temperature, and visually see the angle adjustments that should be made. A simple google search of lat/long coordinates can be used to run a supplemental program that details moveable awning positions for cities not included in our basic list.

How we built it. We used Matlab's app developer in order to create a Graphic User Interface. Data related to average daily temperatures in major US cities was extracted from extremeweatherwatch.com and an orbital mechanics simulation was run based on Census Bureau data regarding city location and astrophysics equations pulled from NOAA. To simulate how to use the information from the Matlab code we than automated a mini awning to show the optimal angles every hour from sunrise to sunset in Manhattan, KS on November 13, 2022

Challenges we ran into. The largest challenges we ran into came with not knowing how to use Matlab's app designer and the different thought process that it takes to use the functions in the app designer verses functions in normal matlab code.

Accomplishments that we're proud of. This was the first time either of us have successfully generated a GUI and a reasonable full stack application. The environment is also of great importance to both of us, and the fact that we were able to develop a program that could have quite a large impact on energy efficiency is really big.

What we learned. We learned a ton about Matlab's app designer. Neither of us have had any experience with it, and through using the app designer, we got great practice with building functions. The final number of functions that we used were too many to count.

What's next for Solar Controller. We looked into developing an actual web app but did not hear back from Mathworks in time so we were unable to download the Matlab server software in time. We are also working on allowing the user to not only select the largest cities in the US but expand it to any location on the globe.

Built With

• arduino
• matlab