Condition Monitoring of Fixed and Dual Axis Tracker using Curve Fitting Technique

Abstract

This paper deals with the condition monitoring of fixed and dual-axis tracking-based solar energy generation. Initially, the system has been developed with a software interface, and the power output of the single- and dual-axis solar trackers is monitored. From the power signatures, curve-fitting technique-based monitoring has been done. The characteristic equations from the current signatures have been extracted depending on the best-fit feature extracted from the analysis in the software domain. Depending on the extracted feature from the developed characteristic equation, an algorithm has been proposed for disintegrating the power outputs from the single and dual axis trackers in due course. Thereafter, a laboratory-based model has been built consisting of single and dual-axis trackers, and the data has been tracked at different intervals on two respective days to calculate the power outputs. The nature of the power output from the trackers has also been assessed using the same curve fitting technique, and it has been observed that the natures are exactly similar to those obtained from software simulation. Both the current signatures obtained from software and practical studies resemble a 5th-degree polynomial. However, the roots are slightly different in the case of practical study.