controling two stepper motor to follow the sun

[tamimi87]

I am a student in the engineering collage and I am working on my graduation Project and the aim of my project is to control two stepper motors to follow the movement of the sun (sun tracker) Already I built the hardware part which needs for each motor two Input (one for the rotation and the other for the direction) I mean the Lab VIEW should give me two output for each motor; one output should be pulses which can be controlled according to the timing of the sun rise and sun set which will be changed every day automatically and the other output should be used to change the direction of the motor to let the motor to go back to the correct position before the sun rise in the second day.

Note: I know how to use lab VIEW for monitoring and inputting analog signals and study them and save them in excel sheets because I am going to do a long time measurements for two different solar cells fixed on the sun tracker and the outputs voltages coming from the solar cells will be saved in the excel sheets using the lab VIEW and also the temperature of the area of the solar cells will be recorded using lab VIEW too. (ALL THESE THINGS I Already DONE)

My question is (Can I do this using lab VIEW? and I tried to get two output at least but the program give me error saying one output is reserved? also my hardware part is working with the output I get from Lab View each output alone?

is there any other solution I can control my sun tracker using lab VIEW?)

MY Email: tamimi87@hotmail.com, Mobile Number: 00971554979057 , I am in UAE is there any office for you or any experts in lab VIEW in this country who I can contact and get his help?

[mross]

I am not answering your questions because I can't answer without knowing the version of LabVIEW and the hardware you are using. You should always tell these things when asking questions.

Given acceptable hardware the answer is: Yes, LabVIEW can do what you have described.

I have a suggestion that is different from what you have described. Perhaps you will like it, or maybe not. I personally do not like the idea of tracking the sun by some tabulated data. It is not necessary and this makes the machine dependent on the operator putting in the proper lookup table, and orienting the machine exactly.

Instead have the machine search periodically for the angle of greatest power generation. You could have the machine tilt east then west to find the angle of greatest incident radiation then tilt in a vertical plane searching for greatest incident radiation. Then interpolate the best angle at that time. Perhaps interpolation is not necessary if you have sufficient resolution of the angle. Then a few minutes later recalculate a new set of angles and move there.

This method embodies what I believe is the best way to approach any design: seek the correct result. In your case you want maximum power generation. The location of the sun is only indirectly what you want because it cannot be inferred in the moment and only predicted based on a great of deal of calculation or measurement before the the machine is implemented. None of the calculation and measurement, and no precise orientation of the machine is needed if the machine can simply seek the greatest incident energy.

Mike