• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.55-62
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• 2001

A parabolic dish concentrator used in a high temperature application of solar energy tracks the sun's movement by two axis sun tracking system. In such a system, sun tracking performance affects the system efficiency directly. Generally the higher the tracking accuracy is, the better the system performance is. A large number of parabolic dish type concentrators has been developed and implemented in the world. However none of them clearly provided a qualitative method of how the accuracy of the sun tracking system can be evaluated. The work presented here is the evaluation of sun tracking performance of parabolic dish concentrator, which follows the sun's movement by the sensor, using a computer vision system. We install a camera on the parabolic dish concentrator. While the concentrator follows the sun, sun's images are captured continuously. Then the performance of sun tracking system was evaluated by analyzing the variation of the position of the sun in the captured images.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.664-671
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• 2018

Generally, conventional solar tracking systems employ irradiance sensors to track a sun position, which enables the system to generate maximum solar energy. The usage of irradiance sensors increases system costs and deteriorates the performance of systems from sensor malfunctions. In this paper, a new solar tracking system without irradiance sensors has been proposed in which the controller capable of controlling and monitoring remotely is based on Artik platform. The proposed system tracks the sun position by comparing the amount of currents from several solar panels, resulting in removing irradiance sensors. In order to verify the performance of the proposed solar tracking method, the 12[V]-20[W] prototype system is built and implemented. Since the proposed system has remote monitoring functions through the employment of Artik as the IoT platform, more advantages in installation, maintenance and expanded functionality can be obtained compared to the conventional solar tracking system.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.67-73
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• 2013

The conversion of solar radiation into electrical energy by Photo-Voltaic (PV) effect is a very promising technology, being clean, silent and reliable, with very small maintenance costs and small ecological impact. The output power produced by the PV panels depends strongly on the incident light radiation. The continuous modification of the sun-earth relative position determines a continuously changing of incident radiation on a fixed PV panel. The point of maximum received energy is reached when the direction of solar radiation is perpendicular on the panel surface. Thus an increase of the output energy of a given PV panel can be obtained by mounting the panel on a solar tracking device that follows the sun trajectory. Tracking systems that have two axes and follow the sun closely at all times during the day are currently the most popular. This paper presents research conducted into the performance of Solar tracking system with photosensors. The results show that an optimized dual-axis tracking system with photosensor performance and analysis. From the obtained results, it is seen that the sun tracking system improves the energy and energy efficiency of the PV panel.ti-junction CPV module promises to accelerate growth in photovoltaic power generation.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.1-11
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• 2009

Heliostat sun tracking accuracy could be the most important requirement in solar thermal power plant, since it determines the overall efficiency of power plant. This study presents the effect of geometrical errors on the heliostat sun tracking performance. The geometrical errors considered here are the mirror canting error, encoder reference error, heliostat position error. pivot offset and tilt error, gear backlash and mass unbalanced effect error. We first investigate the effect of each individual geometrical error on the sun tracking accuracy. Then, the sun tracking error caused by the combination of individual geometrical error is computed and analyzed. The results obtained using the solar ray tracing technique shows that the sun tracking error due to the geometrical error is varying almost randomly. It also shows that the mirror canting error is the most significant error source, while the encoder reference error and gear backlash are second and the third dominant source of errors.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.405-411
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• 2010

This paper proposes a novel tracking algorithm considering radiation to improve the power of a photovoltaic (PV) tracking system. The sensor method used in a conventional PV plant is unable to track the sun's exact position when the intensity of solar radiation is low. It also has the problem of malfunctions in the tracking system due to rapid changes in the climate. The program method generates power loss due to unnecessary operation of the tracking system because it is not adapted to various weather conditions. This tracking system does not increase the power above that of a power of tracking system fixed at a specific position due to these problems. To reduce the power loss, this paper proposes a novel control algorithm for a tracking system and proves the validity of the proposed control algorithm through a comparison with the conventional PV tracking method.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.38-43
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• 2009

In this paper. a prototype of a mobile Sun tracking system is proposed. The proposed system uses 2-axis tilt sensor and 3-axis magnetic sensor to measure the orientation and the posture of the system according to the horizontal system of coordinates, which are used to compensate the slope effects. Then through astronomical calculation using the time and position information obtained by GPS sensor the azimuth and altitude of the Sun from that location is calculated. The position of the Sun is converted to that of the mobile Sun tracking system coordinates and used to control A-axis and C-axis of the system.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.69-75
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• 2010

This paper describes the design and implementation of hybrid sun tracking solar power generation system designed by combining astronomical data with optical tracking mechanism. The advantages of proposed power generation system are small amounts of calculation for tracking operations and enhancement of 40% of power generation at best. This system is able to track toward optimal position for maximum sun-lights under scattered lights due to clouds. The performance of implemented power generation system is confirmed by field experiments.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.59 no.10
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• pp.1823-1831
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• 2010

This paper proposes an automatic tracking control algorithm for efficiency improvement of photovoltaic generation. Increasing the power of PV systems should improve the efficiency of solar cells or the power condition system. The normal alignment of the PV module always have to run perpendicular to the sun's rays. The solar tracking system, able to improve the efficiency of the PV system, was initiated by applying that to the PV power plant. The tracking system of conventional PV power plant has been studied with regard to the tracking accuracy of the solar cells. Power generation efficiency were increased by aligning the cells for maximum exposure to the sun's rays. Using a perpendicular position facilitated optimum condition. However, there is a problem about the reliability of tracking systems unable to not track the sun correctly during environmental variations. Therefore, a novel control algorithm needs to improve the generation efficiency of the PV systems and reduce the loss of generation. This control algorithm is the proposed automatic tracking algorithm in this paper. Automatic tracking control is combined the sensor and program method for robust control in environment changing condition. This tracking system includes the insolation, rain sensor and anemometer for climate environment changing. Proposed algorithm in this paper, is compared to performance of conventional tracking control algorithm in variative insolation condition. And prove the validity of proposed algorithm through the experimental data.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.89-99
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• 2008

In this paper proposes a novel tacking algorithm regarding the power loss when operating a tracking system for a rapidly changing insolation to improve the power of PV hacking system. The tracking system of sensor method used in a conventional PV power station is unable to exactly track a sun position when lacking in the intensity of radiation and has the problem is malfunction of tracking system by a rapidly changing climatic. The tracking system of program method spends too much energy on the unnecessary operation of tracking system because that is unable to adapt itself to a outside factor of climatic environment. In case of tracking an azimuth and altitude of the sun in realtime, therefore, the actual PV power is less increasing than the power of tracking system fixed a specific position. To reduce the power loss, this pap proposes a novel control algorithm of the tracking system. Also, this paper is analyzed efficiency of traditional solar tracking method and proposed method, prove validity of proposed algorithm through demonstrable study.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.39-45
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• 2017

This paper presents the effect of solar collectors on the performance of solar tracking daylighting systems. A series of measurements were made for two different types of solar collectors mounted on double axis solar trackers: Parabolic dish concentrator and Fresnel Lens. Indoor light levels were measured at different locations of an office space (longitude: 126.33 E, latitude 33.45 N) as photo sensors were placed on a task plane 80 cm above the floor. To accurately monitor the applicability of the systems, measurements were performed under clear and overcast sky conditions with the roll-screen (on the south window) in the down position. Comparing the illuminance data, the system with Fresnel lens outperformed that of parabolic dish concentrator. On clear days, the former delivered the light levels of 400~600 lux on the task plane whereas the latter recorded 100~200 lux. Depending on the amount of cloud cover, on overcast days, illuminance readings fluctuated to some extent.