• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• 제38권10호
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• pp.1310-1317
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• 2014

In our daily life, the need of energy increases day by day. However, the amount of natural resources on the earth is limited and thus gaining renewable energy as an energy resource is one of the important and urgent problems. Solar energy is one of the most popular available energy sources that can be converted into electricity by using solar panels. In order for solar panels to produce maximal output power, the incident angle of the sunlight needs to be persistently perpendicular to the solar panel. By the way, most of the solar panels are installed at fixed position and direction. Therefore, as the sun's position changes, it is impossible to produce maximal output power inevitably. To improve this problem, in this paper, a sun tracking system using two degree-of-freedom (DOF) active sensor array is proposed so that the solar panel may always direct sunlight perpendicularly. And also a series of software, such as a search mode and a holding mode, which can control the developed sun tracking system is developed. Several experiments using the implemented sun tracking system are executed and the effectiveness of the system is verified from the experimental results.

• 대한전기학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한전기학회 2004년도 하계학술대회 논문집 B
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• pp.1544-1546
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• 2004

This paper describes the element of solar cell's characteristics, photovoltaic system and solar tracking through experiment. Furthermore, it proposes the experiment results of the PV system is contained solar modules, power conditioning system and the solar tracking system using air compress charging energy The experimental results show that the PV system is always operated at maximum power of solar cells and tracking the sun in order to generate efficiently power generation and propose a capability of its application.

• 한국태양에너지학회 논문집
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• 제21권4호
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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.

• 한국태양에너지학회 논문집
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• 제29권6호
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• pp.22-31
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• 2009

Canting is the optical alignment of mirror facets of heliostat such that the heliostat could focus the energy as a unit concentrator. Canting could improve the optical performance of heliostat and thus improves the efficiency of heliostat and ultimately improves the efficiency of the solar thermal power plant. This study discusses the effect of mirror canting, especially off-axis canting, used to compensate the sun tracking error caused by the heliostat geometrical errors. We first show that the canting could compensate the sun tracking error caused by the heliostat geometrical errors. Then we show that the proper canting time could exist, depending on the heliostat location. Finally we show how much the sun tracking performance could be improved by canting, by providing RMS sun tracking error. The limitation and caution of using canting to improve the sun tracking performance are also discussed.

• 한국정보통신학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국정보통신학회 2017년도 추계학술대회
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• pp.450-453
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• 2017

본 논문은 FPGA를 이용해서 태양을 추적하는 시스템에 대해서 소개한다. 센서를 이용한 추적방법과 태양의 고도를 프로그래밍하여 추적하는 방법을 혼합한 방식인 혼합식 태양 추적 방식을 이용한다. 본 논문에서의 센서는 이미지센서, 광센서를 사용하고 시간에 따라 태양의 고도를 프로그래밍하고 동작 시간은 컴퓨터에서 하이퍼터미널을 통한 무선통신을 통해서 수신한다. 비교적 개발비용이 저렴하고 업데이트 가능한 FPGA를 사용하고, 양방향 추적식 및 혼합추적법을 사용하여 최대한의 에너지 발전효율을 갖는 태양추적시스템을 제안한다.

• 제어로봇시스템학회논문지
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• 제18권5호
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• pp.502-508
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• 2012

Heliostat, as a concentrator to reflect the incident solar energy to the receiver, is the most important system in the tower-type solar thermal power plant since it determines the efficiency and ultimately the overall performance of solar thermal power plant. Thus, a good sun tracking ability as well as a good optical property of it are required. Heliostat sun tracking system uses usually an open loop control system. Thus the sun tracking error caused by heliostat's geometrical error, optical error and computational error cannot be compensated. Recently use of sun tracking error model to compensate the sun tracking error has been proposed, where the error model is obtained from the measured ones. This work is a development of heliostat sun tracking error measurement and compensation method using BCS (Beam Characterization System). We first developed an image processing system to measure the sun tracking error optically. Then the measured error is modeled in linear polynomial form and neural network form trained by the extended Kalman filter respectively. Finally error models are used to compensate the sun tracking error. We also developed the necessary image processing algorithms so that the heliostat optical properties such as maximum heat flux intensity, heat flux distribution and total reflected heat energy could be analyzed. Experimentally obtained data shows that the heliostat sun tracking accuracy could be dramatically improved using either linear polynomial type error model or neural network type error model. Neural network type error model is somewhat better in improving the sun tracking performance. Nevertheless, since the difference between two error models in compensation of sun tracking error is small, a linear error model is preferred in actual implementation due to its simplicity.

• 전기학회논문지
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• 제59권10호
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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.

• 전기전자학회논문지
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• 제24권2호
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• pp.392-402
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• 2020

본 논문은 광센서 없는 태양광 추적 시스템을 제안한다. 태양광 추적, MPPT, ESS, 모니터링의 4가지 기능을 모듈화하여 시스템을 구현하였다. 9개의 태양광 패널을 기본단위로, 바람의 영향을 저감하고, 광센서 없이 태양광 추적이 가능하도록 상하좌우 패널의 높낮이를 다르게 한 격자형 구조를 채택하였다. 저가형 MCU를 이용한 부스트 컨버터 PWM 스위칭을 위해 기존 MPPT의 연산 방법을 개선하였다. ESS 모듈은 리튬 이온 배터리 12개(직렬 3셀과 병렬 4셀)를 기본 단위로 구성하여 온도 및 전기 특성의 이상 유무 감시가 가능하게 하였다. 각 모듈의 MCU는 Atmega128 또는 Raspberry PI로 구성하였으며 운전 정보를 상호 교환하고, IoT 기술을 응용하여 실시간 원격 모니터링과 클라우드에 데이터베이스를 구축하여 유지보수가 가능하게 하였다. 실험을 위해 제작된 태양광 발전 시스템의 운전 데이터는 각 모듈의 분산 및 원격 모니터링의 가능성, 유지보수의 편의성 및 광추적 성능을 증명한다.

• 대한전기학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한전기학회 2001년도 하계학술대회 논문집 B
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• pp.1032-1034
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• 2001

As well known, a solar cell has an optimal operating point to be able to get the maximum power $P_{max}$. So, many $P_{max}$ tracking controllers using the line voltage of a solar cell have been popularly used. But it may vary depending on the miss match between the solar cell output and the load. In this paper, we investigate the possibilities of $P_{max}$ control using the current tracking controller and the output voltage and the output current instead of the solar cell output power. And we also examine about the optimal power converter using ZVCS step up and down chopper circuit to operate the solar cell at an optimal voltage using these variables. And then, we show some experimental results to confirm the successful operation.

• 전력전자학회논문지
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• 제25권2호
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• pp.111-117
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• 2020

The photovoltaic module has the characteristic that the output power varies according to the amount of insolation. If partial shading occurs in an environment composed of an array, a number of local maximum power points (LMPPs) may be generated according to the shading state. Photovoltaic arrays require global maximum power point tracking due to variations in output characteristics caused by solar radiation and temperature. Conventional algorithms, such as P&O and Incond, do not follow the global maximum power point in a partial shaded solar array. In this study, we propose a technique to follow the global maximum power point by using the correlation of voltage, current, and power in solar arrays. The proposed control technique 2qw validated through simulation and experiments by constructing a 2-kW solar system.