SunTracker

Diploma project

Roadmap

1. Components

   • 2 axis tower that accomplishes the following:
     • supports the solar panel
     • supports light sensors
     • supports rotation horizontally
     • supports rotation vertically
   • temperature sensors
   • humidity sensors
   • (optional) athmospheric pressure sensor
   • (optional) wind speed sensor
   • graphic LCD screen
   • 2 DC motors for turret rotation
   • WiFi module
   • outlet power source

2. What to do

   • Wifi connection to a web server for transmit or receive information
   • create a backend web server with database (django and !?)
   • (optional) statistics
   • (optional) adjust parameters based on location and season
   • 3D print the turret - have a good design
     • incorporates the rotating mechanism
     • easily attachable sonar panel and sensors
     • can be opened to check insides
     • robust
   • graphic LCD screen to display system status
     • temperature
     • humidity
     • Wi-Fi connection
     • (optional) atmospheric pressure
     • (optional) wind speed
   • figure out how to move the solar panel ( choose from below )
     • use an api with locates the sun and move the solar panel as best as you can to point at that position
     • create a custom object to allign with incomming sun light such that it has the least projection
   • at the end create a user manual
   • (important) have tracking information to easily write the project documentation

Preconditions for running the project

The project was built on a Raspberry Pi 2 model B v1.1 and the running of the program is directly impacted by the CPU ping numbering. If the project is tried to be run on other hardware than this it has a high chance of not working. The instructions for building and running the project are presented below. For a more detailed explanation you can check the Appendix of the documentation which is written in Romanian language for further user guidance.

Tools to be used

The project comes with a small display screen. If there is no display screen attached to the Raspberry Pi Hardware please take notes on the following:

Some tools that can be used for accesing the shell are:

1. Putty
2. MobaXTerm

The Raspberry Pi linux shells can be then accesed through SSH connection using one of those software tools.

Building & Running the project

Building

For building the appl application please use do the following commands:

1. navigate to application directory: cd /home/corona/shared/aaa/SunTracker/appl
2. build the application in the directory: make all

The second application is the webserver which is not required to be built and can be run freely.

Running

For running the project you will need to run both of the applications:

1. open 2 separate shells
2. in the 1st shell navigate as above to the first application: cd /home/corona/shared/aaa/SunTracker/appl
3. in the 2nd shell navigate to the project directory: cd /home/corona/shared/aaa/SunTracker
4. activate python virtual environment source env/bin/activate
5. navigate to the project: cd webserver

Now, the setup is ready in both shells and execution of program can start. For this, run the next commands:

1. 1st shell: ./appl
2. 2nd shell: python3 app.py

The execution of the program is now started and you can open in the browser the webpage by going to: raspberrypi.local:5000.

NOTE: If the device is connected to a WLAN, you should be able to acces the website on any device that is connected to the same network.

New possible way of running that handles stopping as well:

Now, the setup is ready in both shells and execution of program can start. For this, run the next commands:

1. 1st shell: ./appl& (to run in background)
2. 2nd shell: python3 app.py

For stopping: In the 1st shell run: ./stop.sh