Design and Implementation of a Solar Tracker with Live Data Feed Utilizing IoT

A solar tracking system with the internet of things (IoT) live feed data for a windows platform was investigated. This paper presented a step-by-step design methodology of a dual-axis tracking system. Further, this study presented the design, implementation scheme, and suitable set of software that works with an Arduino Mega 2560 microcontroller. The operation of the whole system solely depended on the effectiveness of the designed solar tracking structure, which in turn supported the photovoltaic module(s) that were constantly maintained perpendicular to the incoming sun rays. For proper tracking and coordination of the sun's azimuth and elevation angles, two servo motors -MG995- were introduced in conjunction with the 2560-Microcontroller to synchronize the movements efficiently. The system exhibited the ability to execute and monitor the real-time operations of the photovoltaic (PV) module and showed the potential to optimize the performance of the solar PV system. Results showed that the tracking system is 23.30% more efficient than a fixed system, which is equivalent to removing 0.31 metric tons of $\mathbf{CO_{2}}$ from the environment, thus creating the possibility of harnessing more solar energy. Also, results revealed that the dual-axis system was able to follow the movement of the sun instantly.