1-axis and 2-axis solar trackers

Abstract

A one-axis sun position tracking device with its rotation axis parallel to the rotation axis of the Earth, rotates perpetually at a constant speed in the opposite direction of the Earth's rotation. This device comprises a shaft that is aligned to the Earth's polar axis, one or more crossbars are rigidly attached to and perpendicular to the shaft, solar energy collectors are mounted on the crossbar and could rotate around the crossbar that defines declination angle. A self-latched declination angle adjustment mechanism keeps the declination angle constant at most of time. A drive mechanism keeps this solar tracker to rotate perpetually. An automatic and abrupt declination angle change will keep the declination angle updated to correct value each day. A similarly configured two-axis tracker that continuously updates its declination angle by a mechanism derived from a differential coaxial rotation. Two independent driving mechanisms control the speed and / or duration of the two coaxial rotations, and are programmed to eliminate all tracking errors from various sources.

Description

Technical field [0001] The present invention relates to the collection of solar energy, and more particularly to the tracking of the sun's position related to solar concentration for better collection of solar energy under the condition of solar concentration. Background technique [0002] It is well known that tracking the position of the sun correctly is very important for harvesting solar energy, especially under concentrated conditions. In this regard, many different implementations have been invented, which can generally be classified as one-axis tracking and two-axis tracking. One-axis tracking is very simple, but it is generally believed that the tracking ability of one-axis tracking is relatively poor, but it is not true in a specific situation; two-axis tracking can have a good tracking accuracy, but, due to the commonly used The structure of the two-axis coupled rotation is usually very complicated, and its manufacturing cost is correspondingly relatively high. ...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, the continuous adjustment mechanism for altitude declination is only approximately sinusoidal, and he does not mention a way to correct for this error

In addition, the gear ratio is set at 365:1, since a year is not exactly 365 days, which will cause errors to accumulate, establishing a more precise gear ratio is not easy to implement in this drive mechanism

In addition, parasitic dynamics make the angle adjustment of the mechanism only suitable for continuous rotation, it cannot select the motion mode of rotating back and forth

[0007] In U.S. Patent 4368962, the inventor Kelberg describes a polar axis tracking device and more sophisticated methods to adjust the declination angle, he further implements the error correction mechanism to correctly compensate for various errors, which is a plethora of The gear mechanism, the very complicated implementation method of multi-stage coaxial rotation, the mechanical connection of the "space crankshaft" requires 4 shafts to intersect at one point, all of which make it difficult to implement in practice

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