Dual Axis Sun Tracking Control Utilizing Fuzzy Fractional Order PID Controller

Abstract

The solar power is the most important clean renewable power, which is mainly found in hot climate countries. The technology helped to produce electricity from solar power, But the obstacle that faces producing the maximum amount of electricity from the Sun, is the apparent movement of the Sun that makes it change its position. The objective of this research is to design a solar tracking system to harness the maximum solar irradiance. The solar tracking system is the most appropriate method to improve the efficiency of solar cells by tracking the Sun with respect to its change in direction. The purpose of a similar approach is used to track the Sun movement from North to South over the period of a year. This research proposes fuzzy fractional order PID (FFOPID) controller for a dual-axis solar tracking Photovoltaic (PV) system. The controller maintains the maximum power from PV solar cells through tracking Sunlight to be incident perpendicularly to the PV panel. The dynamic models for solar radiation, solar panel and electro mechanics system were obtained. Furthermore, the proposed controller is verified through simulation work utilizing SIMULINK/MATLAB. Moreover, the results represent the behavior of solar cell while solar radiation changes and there is a variation in temperature during simulation run time. The proposed controller is benchmarked with Fractional Order PID and conventional PID controllers. It’s fond that, the proposed controller achieves better results to get maximum power the solar Dual Axis system. Furthermore, the proposed controller has faster tracking response via 9.6% than PID and via 6.5% FOPID controllers.