Efficient Photovoltaic Solar Panel with Mirror Actuation

This paper is to design and develop a microcontroller based solar mirror actuation system. In recent years solar energy has rapidly become an alternative means of power source all over the world. Solar energy becomes profitable when maximum irradiance is available on the surface of the panel, but during offnoon conditions, the irradiance on the surface reduces thereby resulting in less power generation by the panel. This paper deals with the design and construction of the solar-tracking system with a mirror by using ATmega168 microcontroller programmed by Arduino. The mirror reflecting more irradiance is used to maximize the efficiency. The mirror will travel from East to West and vice-versa, while the solar panel is kept in the North-South direction at a particular angle with respect to surface level. The prototype is a programmed ATmega168 microcontroller which controls the system by communicating with a current sensor, voltage divider measurements and motor driver based on the movement of the sun. The performance and characteristics of the proposed system are experimentally analyzed.