Solar Tracker Control Simulation (Project 249)

[robertogl]

Contribute to the discussion by asking and/or answering questions, commenting, or sharing your ideas for solutions to project 249

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🤖 An AI bot may reply to your comments with suggestions and guidance. It will not solve the project for you. Your comments may be processed by a third-party LLM. To direct a question to a specific person, tag them with @username.

[Thifhelimbilu]

Hi, I am a student at the University of the Witwatersrand and am interested in working and collaborating on this project

[K-Yogesh-Mishra]

If you need a teammate, please tell me.

[BoogiUmar]

Hi, I am a student at the University of Witwatersrand and I am interested in working and collaborating on this project. Maybe I can build my own solar tracking setup from the knowledge I gain here.

[hailu468]

Hi,i am a student at Hawasa University in Ethiopia, and i am interested in working on and collaborating on this project.

[PhosiwaMutalu]

Hi, I am a student at the University of the Witwatersrand and am interested in working and collaborating on this project

[leyrieee]

Hi, I am from Ashesi University in Ghana, and I am interested in working and collaborating on this project!

[Ravisha17]

Hi , I am from University of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka , and I am interested in working and collaborating on this project.

[hamda-bk]

Hi, I am a student at INSAT in Tunisia and am interested in working and collaborating on this project

[theja1010]

I am interested to work with you.

[Ladislous03]

Hi, I am a student at Midlands State University in Zimbabwe and I'm interested in working and collaborating on this project.

[wkarunakaran]

Hi, I am a student at Agni college of Technology Chennai, India and I'm interested in working and collaborating on this project.

[K-Yogesh-Mishra]

I am interested to collaborating in this project. If anyone need teammate feel free to contact.

[LokeshHiri]

Hey guys, I am working on this project.

[LokeshHiri]

What should be my approach to this problem statement? Any advise apart from that provided in the README.md...

[robertogl]

Hi @LokeshHiri,

I would start by modeling and simulating the electric motor in Simscape Electrical, integrating it with the mechanical axis, and designing a PID controller for stable, accurate motion. Once that works, move on to developing the sun-position tracking algorithm. In terms of approaches, you could take a simulation-first approach (focus on modeling and testing everything virtually before control tuning), a control-design-first approach (develop and tune the controller with a simplified plant model, then integrate with Simscape), or a system-level approach (co-design the mechanical, electrical, and control systems together). Depending on your interests, you could also explore data-driven or optimization-based extensions later. Not sure if that is what you meant, but please let me know otherwise.

[AkshYeahh]

Hi , This is Akshaya, from SSN College of Engineering, and interested in working and collaborating on this project!

[akshada004]

Hi! I’m Akshada, a student at SSN College of Engineering, and I am interested in working on and collaborating on this project.

[guvencagan02-cloud]

Hi, I am a student at Gazi University in Turkey and I'm interested in working and collaborating on this project.

[github-actions[bot]]

Great to hear—this project is a good fit if you’re interested in control and renewable energy. Start by reading the project description carefully and sketching the tracker’s inputs, outputs, and performance goals, then build a simple Simulink model with sun-position input, actuator dynamics, and a controller. For MATLAB/Simulink resources, the Control System Toolbox, Simulink, and possibly Simscape can help you model and tune the system; functions like pidtune, step, and sim are often useful for early prototyping. You can also look at MathWorks documentation on solar position and controller design in Simulink to decide whether to use a PID, state-space, or rule-based approach.

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[guvencagan02-cloud]

Hello,

I am Çağan Güven, and I have completed my solution for Solar Tracker Control Simulation — Project 249.

The project implements closed-loop yaw/azimuth control for three replicated solar tracker assemblies. Each tracker uses an independent PID-controlled DC motor, a worm-and-gear mechanical transmission, and Simscape Multibody visualization. A common time-varying yaw reference is used to represent the apparent sun path.

The repository includes a one-click MATLAB entry point that initializes the project, runs the complete 20-second simulation, validates ten logged signals, calculates performance metrics, and generates the final result plots.

Repository:
https://github.com/guvencagan02-cloud/three-tracker-solar-tracking-system

The complete release has also been verified using an isolated clean-room test.

I would appreciate any feedback on the implementation.

Thank you.