Solar Charging Station

The autonomous solar tracking senior capstone project has been in progress since 2018, with multiple project teams taking it on. The task of this year's Electrical and Computer Engineering Capstone Design team 411, is to restore the communication between the solar panel and power box and update the current website. The Team members whose profiles you can see above make up the Electrical and Computer Engineering Capstone Design Team 11. We were tasked with creating an autonomous solar tracking system in order to maximize the amount of power generated by a single solar panel. The end goal of this project is to have the system installed on Binghamton University's campus for use as an outdoor charging station for students to charge their portable electronics. The purpose of this website is to provide live data about the use and status of the system, as well as to provide some insight into the process used to create it.

The system consists of a single solar panel (approximately 1m x 1m), attached to a biaxial slew drive, which is then mounted on top of a 3 foot tall pole. The slew drive is a geared assembly with 1 DC electric stepper motors to control the horizontal angle of the panel and the other motor that is within the base controls the vertical rotation, allowing it to track the sun from morning until night. This increases the power generated by keeping the panel perpendicular to the incedent sunlight rather than at the optimal fixed location that is used in stationary panels. The system uses the known location of the sun in the form of azimuth and altitude in order to determine the orientation of the panel.