Sun tracking system design and testing for solar energy conversion systems

This paper presents the design and testing of a sun tracking device developed for the automation of solar energy conversion systems. A remote controlled sun tracking prototype has been studied and implemented, and its technical features together with its architecture are discussed giving full details of the technical characteristics and of the critical aspects that heavily affect the collimating precision in the sun position search. Designed prototype has been applied to two different solar concentrator systems: a linear solar parabolic mirror concentrator and a concentrator system using Fresnel lens. On a scaled prototype of this second device, a trial campaign to test sun tracking performance has been conducted and results are presented and discussed.