The Development of Sun-Tracking System Using Image Processing

• Main Authors: Hong-Cheng Huang, Cheng-Dar Lee, Hong-Yih Yeh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2013-04-01
• Series: Sensors
• Subjects: image-based Sun position sensor; image processing; four-quadrant light sensor; bar-shadow photo sensor
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/13/5/5448

This article presents the development of an image-based sun position sensor and the algorithm for how to aim at the Sun precisely by using image processing. Four-quadrant light sensors and bar-shadow photo sensors were used to detect the Sun’s position in the past years. Nevertheless, neither of them can maintain high accuracy under low irradiation conditions. Using the image-based Sun position sensor with image processing can address this drawback. To verify the performance of the Sun-tracking system including an image-based Sun position sensor and a tracking controller with embedded image processing algorithm, we established a Sun image tracking platform and did the performance testing in the laboratory; the results show that the proposed Sun tracking system had the capability to overcome the problem of unstable tracking in cloudy weather and achieve a tracking accuracy of 0.04°.