The 20th annual Symposium will be held on Thursday, April 23, 2009.

Implementation of an Algorithm-Driven Solar Tracker
Norris 102, 3:45 PM

Tim  Rambo,   '09 57
   Majors: Physics, Computer Science
   Hometown: Charlotte, MI

Sponsor(s): Aaron Miller
Support:  

Abstract: 
Solar energy is being given an increasingly important role in the American economy, and in the energy sector. This talk will provide a brief introduction to the current state of solar technology and then detail my own work in the solar industry. I will describe how the prototype solar tracking system was designed, how new error correction methods were developed, explain the integration of hardware and software into the final system. This prototype solar tracking system maintains pointing accuracy better than one tenth of a degree relative to the center of the sun. This brain of the system is an embedded Linux system that iteratively calculates solar position using accurate time and device position information. The system then determines the alignment error of the solar collector and then adjusts the pointing of the collector, if necessary, to maintain the specified accuracy. In conclusion I will discuss work remaining to be done on the project in its path to commercialization.

 57