Design, Fabrication and Preliminary Testing of a Two-Axes Solar Tracking System

Abstract

A two-axes equator based tracking mechanism with computer control for solar photovoltaic modules has been designed, fabricated and tested. The performance of the system is quite satisfactory; the tracking error is quite small. Tracking leads to an increase in the output of the PV modules typically by about 30%. The operation of the tracker is found to consume a very small fraction of the output power.