• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.327-334
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• 2013

In August 2012 the first CanSat competition was hosted by the Satellite Research Center of KAIST under auspice of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. The present authors team won the first prize in the university session. In this paper the overall procedure of the CanSat project presented from the conceptual design stage to the final launch test. As the compulsory mission CanSat should send GPS data and attitude information to the ground station which in practice was performed via Bluetooth channel. In addition our CanSat is designed to trace the sun for the solar panels supplying electric power of satellite. IMU and servo motors are used for the attitude control in order that the solar sensor of the CanSat is always direct towards the sun. Launching of CanSat was simulated by dropping from a balloon at the height of around 150m via parachute. Launching test results showed that the attitude control of the CanSat and its solar sensing function were successful.

• Advances in Energy Research
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.97-106
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• 2013

This study designs and tests a photovoltaic system with distributed maximum power point tracking (DMPPT) methodology using a field programmable gate array (FPGA) controller. Each solar panel in the distributed PV system is equipped with a newly designed DC/DC converter and the panel's voltage output is regulated by a FPGA controller using PI control. Power from each solar panel on the system is optimized by another controller where the quadratic maximization MPPT algorithm is used to ensure the panel's output power is always maximized. Experiments are carried out at atmospheric insolation with partial shading conditions using 4 amorphous silicon thin film solar panels of 2 different grades fabricated by Chi-Mei Energy. It is found that distributed MPPT requires only 100ms to find the maximum power point of the system. Compared with the traditional centralized PV (CPV) system, the distributed PV (DPV) system harvests more than 4% of solar energy in atmospheric weather condition, and 22% in average under 19% partial shading of one solar panel in the system. Test results for a 1.84 kW rated system composed by 8 poly-Si PV panels using another DC/DC converter design also confirm that the proposed system can be easily implemented into a larger PV power system. Additionally, the use of NI sbRIO-9642 FPGA-based controller is capable of controlling over 16 sets of PV modules, and a number of controllers can cooperate via the network if needed.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.7
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• pp.4463-4468
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• 2014

To increase the efficiency of a solar module, the development of solar concentrator using a lens or reflection plate is being proceeded actively and the concentrator pursues the a concentration using a lens or an optical device of a concentration rate and designing as a solar tracking system. On the other hand, as the energy density being dissipated as a heat according to the concentration rate increases, the cares should be taken to cool the solar concentrator to prevent the lowering of efficiency of solar cell by the increasing temperature of the solar cell. This study, researched and developed an economical concentrator module system using a low priced reflection optical device. A concentrator was used as a general module to increase the generation efficiency of the solar module and heat generated was emitted by the concentration through the cooling system. To increase the efficiency of the solar concentrator, the cooling system was designed and manufactured. The features of the micro cooling system (MCS) are a natural circulation method by the capillary force, which does not require external power. By using the potential heat in the case of changing the fluid, it is available to realize high performance cooling. The 117W solar modules installed on the reflective plate and the cooling device in the cooling module and the module unit was not compared. The cooling device was installed in the module resulted in a 28% increase in power output.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.828-834
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• 2013

In this paper, TMC (Tracker Motion Controller) as one of the many research methods for condensing efficiency improvements can be condensed into efficient solar system configuration to improve the power generation efficiency of the castle with Concentrated solar silicon and photovoltaic systems (CPV)experiments using PV systems. Microprocessor used on the solar system, tracing the development of solar altitude and latitude of each is calculated in real time. Also accept the value from the sensor, motor control and communication with the central control system by calculating the value of the current position of the sun, there is a growing burden on the applicability. Through the way the program is appropriate for solar power systems and sensors hybrid-type algorithm was implemented in the ARM core with built-in TMC, Concentrated CPV system compared to the existing PV systems, through the implementation of the TMC in the country's power generation efficiency compared and analyzed. Sensor method using existing experimental results Concentrated solar power systems to communicate the value of GPS location tracking method hybrid solar horizons in the coordinate system of the sun's azimuth and elevation angles calculated by the program in the calculations of astronomy through experimental resultslook clear day at high solar irradiation were shown to have a large difference. Stopped after a certain period of time, the sun appears in the blind spot of the sensor, the sensor error that can occur from climate change, however, do not have a cloudy and clear day solar radiation sensor does not keep track of the position of the sun, rather than the sensor of excellence could be found. It is expected that research is constantly needed for the system with ongoing research for development of solar cell efficiency increases to reduce the production cost of power generation, high efficiency condensing type according to the change of climate with the optimal development of the ability TMC.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.59 no.1
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• pp.144-151
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• 2010

The shadowing effects lead to the serious power losses of the PV module. The shadowing effects are caused by several factors such as leafs, dust, antenna and clouds. The dye-sensitized solar cells are more economical than the conventional silicon solar cell that's why the dye-sensitized solar cells are recently focused on. We carried out research on the efficiency of the dye-sensitized solar cell depending on the level of shadow changing the formula of the circuit. The research on the efficiency of the large dye-sensitized solar cell depending on the level of shadow focused on commercialization was carried out. As the results, it is known that the series and parallel connection method is the best choice for the least losses of PV module assemblies. It is especially known that one more series connection is the best choice for the least losses about shadowing effects and current losses in the series and parallel connection.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.80-88
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• 2011

Heliostat in the tower type solar thermal power plant is a sun tracking mirror system to reflect the solar energy to the receiver and the optical performance of it affects to the efficiency of whole power plant most significantly. Thus a solid understanding of heliostat's energy concentration characteristics is the most important step in designing of the heliostat field and the whole power plant. The work presented here is the analysis of energy concentration characteristics of heliostat used in 200kW solar thermal power plant, where the receiver located at 43m high in tower has $2{\times}2$m rectangular shape. The heliostat reflective surface is formed by 4 of $1{\times}1$m flat plate mirror facet and the mirror facet is mounted on the spherical frame. The direct normal incident radiation models in vernal equinox, summer solstice, autumnal equinox and winter solstice are first derived from the actually measured data. Then the intercept ratio, heat flux distribution and total energy collected at the receiver for the heliostats located in the various places of the heliostat field are investigated. Finally the effect of mirror facet installation error on the optical performance of the heliostat is analyzed.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.33-41
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• 2014

Heliostat field in a tower type solar thermal power plant is the sun tracking mirror system which affects the overall efficiency of solar thermal power plant most significantly while consumes a large amount of energy to operate it. Thus optimal operation of it is very crucial for maximizing the energy collection and, at the same time, for minimizing the operating cost. Heliostat field operational algorithm is the logics to control the heliostat field efficiently so as to optimize the heliostat field optical efficiency and to protect the system from damage as well as to reduce the energy consumption required to operate the field. This work presents the heliostat field operational algorithm developed for the heliostat field of 200kW solar thermal power plant built in Daegu, Korea. We first review the structure of heliostat field control system proposed in the previous work to provide the conceptual framework of how the algorithm developed in this work could be implemented. Then the methodologies to operate the heliostat field properly and efficiently, by defining and explaining the various operation modes, are discussed. A simulation, showing the heat flux distribution collected by the heliostat field at the receiver, is used to show the usefulness of proposed heliostat field operational algorithm.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.211-218
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• 2017

This paper proposes the self-powered solar tracker system without CPU. Conventional solar tracker system occurs the problem of cost and durability because of using CPU. In addition, this system has effects from installation site and environment. The proposed solar tracker system without CPU is possible to achieve the high efficiency because it tracks the maximum of the light source. The validity of proposed solar tracking system is verified with experiment results.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.53-62
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• 2011

Heliostat in the tower type solar thermal power plant is a sun tracking mirror system to reflect the solar energy to the receiver and the optical performance of it affects to the efficiency of whole power plant most significantly. Thus a proper design of structure of the heliostat reflective surface could be the most important step in the construction of such power plant. The work presented here is a design of structure of optical surface of heliostat, which will be used in 200kW solar thermal power plant. The receiver located at 43(m) high from ground in tower has $2{\times}2$(m) rectangular shape. We first developed the software tool to simulate the energy concentration characteristics of heliostat using the ray tracing technique. Then, the shape of heliostat reflective surface is designed with the consideration of heliostat's energy concentration characteristics, production cost and productivity. The designed heliostat's reflective surface has a structure formed by canting four of $1{\times}1$(m) rectangular flat plate mirror facet and the center of each mirror facet is located on the spherical surface, where the spherical surface is formulated by the mirror facet mounting frame.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.40-44
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• 2018

In this paper, the efficiency of the solar system is lowered due to the partial shading such as the environmental factors of the solar panel. In order to solve this problem, a DC OPTIMIZER is proposed for a maximum power generation system of a photovoltaic panel. The proposed DC OPTIMIZER is composed of a buck structure that performs the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control of each module of the solar panel, thus maximizing the efficiency. In order to verify the proposed DC Optimizer, the efficiency was measured by varying the irradiance using a solar simulator instead of the solar panel. As a result, it showed high efficiency characteristics as the maximum energy conversion efficiency was 99.3% at $800w/m^2$, $900w/m^2$, and the average efficiency was 99.06% excluding $100w/m^2$. The maximum efficiency of MPPT was 99.97% at $200w/m^2$, efficiency showed excellent performance.