Project Development and Performance Study of a Microcontroller-Based Solar Radiation Measuring System

Abstract

Measurement of solar radiation is essential for determining the viability of a solar system in a particular place. The conventional measuring system embraces some instruments which are very costly. The target of this project is to develop and study the performance of a microcontroller based solar radiation measuring system with locally available low cost components. In this project, ARDUINO UNO has been used as microcontroller and the source code has been written in arduino software by using arduino C programming. As the sensor of the system a tiny solar cell has been used. The cell converts the solar radiation into current. A current to voltage converter (C-V) has been used to get voltage for the micro controller. The output voltage of the C-V unit is converted into digital value and then displayed in LCD. We have also applied our own logical policy and used some vital instruments to reach the destination of this project. The system has been calibrated using a standard pyranometer. Using the system we have measured the radiation for some days. The entire practical outcomes are presented in this report.