Karadeniz Technical University F a c u l t y o f En g i n e e r i n g Electrical and Electronics Engineering Prof. Dr. smail H.

ALTA

Projects for Students

Project 23 Light Tracking Servo System

Light Tracking Servo System

Preliminary Note Most of the material for this case study was generated by Mr. Paul Batcheller during the Spring and Summer of 1992. Mr. Batcheller performed this study as part of his project in System Dynamics during Spring 1992, and then built the physical model during the subsequent summer. Much of the following discussion has been taken directly from his final report: "Analysis of a Light Tracking Servo System," by Paul Batcheller (July 1992). His final project report is referred to as Reference 1 in the following development. Introduction Sun tracking systems are very effective in increasing the efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) arrays, and are essential for concentration PV systems. The following paper discusses a light tracking servo model which has been built to simulate the movement of a PV array. A mathematical model is developed and a qualitative comparison of the mathematical model and the actual physical model is done to demonstrate the dynamics of a light tracking servo system. An overall transfer function for a permanent magnet direct current (dc) motor was also developed. This subject is treated as a separate Case Study in this course (see Case Study F). The motor transfer function is used in the development of an overall transfer function for the light tracking servo system. Using the overall transfer function, a computer simulation program within Matlab is used to simulate the dynamics of the servo system. A qualitative analysis of the Matlab results and the dynamics of the working physical model are compared to clearly illustrate the important dynamics of the system.

Physical and Conceptual Description The light tracking system consists of a permanent magnet dc motor, a directional light detecting circuit, and an amplifier to drive the motor. Refer to the model and to Fig. 6E.1 for the physical configuration and a simple block diagram representation. Two photo sensitive resistors are physically mounted on a triangular plexiglass mount so that when the panel (the aluminum bar) is perpendicular to the light source, each receives an equal amount of irradiance. When one receives more light than the other, the panel is not aligned properly and an error voltage results. The error voltage is used as a command to an amplifier circuit to drive the motor and align the panel to be perpendicular to the light source beam. The following subsections describe in detail the mechanical and electrical components of the model.

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Karadeniz Technical University F a c u l t y o f En g i n e e r i n g Electrical and Electronics Engineering Prof. Dr. smail H. ALTA

Projects for Students

Project 23 Light Tracking Servo System

Fig. 6E.1 Light tracking servo mechanism with proportional control. Power Supply To make the light tracking model self sufficient, a plus and minus 12 volt dc power supply is necessary for the electronic components. In a typical solar application, this dc power source is obtained directly from the PV panels or batteries charged by the PV panels. However, in this case, the dc power is obtained by converting the standard 110 ac (alternating current) power from the wall socket. For this application, the power supply is designed to handle a two ampere load. Figure 6E.2 shows the electrical circuit which handles the conversion of ac to dc power. The circuit can be divided into four sections; transformation, rectification, filtering, and regulation.

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Karadeniz Technical University F a c u l t y o f En g i n e e r i n g Electrical and Electronics Engineering Prof. Dr. smail H. ALTA

Projects for Students

Project 23 Light Tracking Servo System

Fig. 6E.2 Power supply circuit for the sun tracker (from Ref. 1). 1. Transformation is accomplished by the transformer (T1) which steps down the 110 volts to two 15 volt peak ac sources. In a properly designed circuit, the secondary voltage should be 20 volts peak. The lower voltage level causes some ripple voltage on the output under load conditions of 1.5 amp or greater. The two secondaries are tied together at one end to form the common ground of the dc source. This common ground is not the same as the ground from the wall. The transformer also electrically isolates the load from the utility power line by using magnetic coupling to transfer the power. 2. Rectification is accomplished by the diode bridge configuration B1. Although the circuit seems to indicate a bridge rectifier, it is actually two full-wave rectifiers. The right side of the bridge provides positive full-wave rectification while the left side provides negative full-wave rectification. 3. Filtering is provided by capacitors C1 and C4 which level the rectified signal to provide a flat dc voltage equal to the peak of the unrectified signal. Some ripple occurs on the signal and this is a function of the load and the size of the capacitor. The current through a capacitor is . In the worst case condition, when i equals two amperes, the ripple voltage (dv) can be approximated using the above equation. The time between two peaks is one over twice the frequency or 8.3ms (dt = 8.3 ms) and the capacitance is 3300 which gives a ripple voltage of 5 volts peak to peak. A larger capacitor will obviously reduce this ripple, but at some point the capacitor becomes to bulky. 4. The function of the regulators (U1 and U2) is to provide a constant output voltage. The input voltage required to maintain line regulation is given as 14.6 volts. This makes is clear why the transformer must have a peak voltage of 20 volts. If the peak voltage is 20 volts and the ripple is 5 volts, the lowest voltage that will occur is 15 volts which is still above the specified input voltage to the regulator. The capacitors C2, C5, C3 and C6 provide filtering for higher frequency noise and are recommended by the manufacturer's specifications of the regulators. The diodes, D1 and D2, provide protection for the regulators from inductive loads. Photo Detecting Circuit and Amplifier The light tracking circuit (Fig. 6E.3) provides an electrical driving force to the motor which is proportional to the rotational misalignment of the panels to the light source. This circuit can be broken into three sections; photo detector, gain adjust, and current amplifier.

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Karadeniz Technical University F a c u l t y o f En g i n e e r i n g Electrical and Electronics Engineering Prof. Dr. smail H. ALTA

Projects for Students

Project 23 Light Tracking Servo System

Fig. 6E.3 Light tracking circuit diagram for the sun tracker (from Ref. 1). 1. The photo detector provides a voltage signal which is linearly proportional to the rotational offset from the ideal position of the PV panel. This is accomplished by putting two light sensitive resistors in an electrical bridge which is connected to a unity gain differential operational amplifier circuit. When one light sensitive resistor receives more light than the other, a differential voltage results across the bridge network which is fed into the op-amp U1A to convert a differential signal into a voltage signal referenced to ground. The photo detecting circuit has a measured gain of approximately 1.6 volts per radian under fluorescent lighting. This gain may vary depending on the intensity of the light. 2. The gain adjust portion of the circuit simply adjusts the gain. A potentiometer, POT2, allows the user to change the gain of the circuit and thus control the dynamics of the system. A simple inverting op-amp configuration is used to adjust the level of the voltage signal. The gain is Gain = POT2/RPA. This is the signal which is used to command the motor and can be easily monitored on an oscilloscope via the purple connector on the model. 3. The current amplifier provides the current to the motor. The LM358 op-amp is not capable of providing the necessary current to drive the motor. Thus a push-pull circuit is used with the NPN transistor Q1 (TIP121) and the PNP transistor Q2 (TIP126). When the voltage signal from U1B is greater than 0.7 volts, Q1 turns on and conducts the necessary current to drive the motor in a particular direction. When the voltage signal from U1B is less than -0.7 volts, Q2 turns on and the motor is driven in the other direction. The Position Sense circuit shown in Fig. 6E.3 is to monitor the position of the panel. A potentiometer is mechanically coupled to the axis of rotation, and thus provides a voltage signal proportional to the rotational position of the panel. This signal is easily monitored by an oscilloscope from the white connector.

Mathematical Model Development

The following section develops the mathematical representation of the light tracking system. An overall transfer function is developed for the light tracking system by using block diagram algebra on the transfer functions of the photo detecting circuit, amplifier, and motor. Photo Detecting Circuit and Amplifier The photo detecting circuit and amplifier can be considered as a single variable K, where K is a proportionality constant with units of volts per radian. The value of K represents the gain of the photo detector circuit and the gain adjust circuit. Motor Page 4/13 08.11.2007

Karadeniz Technical University F a c u l t y o f En g i n e e r i n g Electrical and Electronics Engineering Prof. Dr. smail H. ALTA

Projects for Students

Project 23 Light Tracking Servo System

The motor in this system is a permanent magnet dc motor whose transfer function is developed in detail within Case Study F in these notes. In the current development the motor is simply represented with the appropriate transfer function relation. Position Feedback Transfer Function A frequency domain block diagram for a position loop servo system is easily developed from the transfer functions of the motor and gain of the photo detector circuit and amplifier, as shown in Fig. 6E.4. Following the signal from the input to the output, a rotational error from the displacement of the photoresistors results in an error voltage. This voltage is converted to a rotational velocity by the motor. The rotational position output is related to the velocity of the motor by integrating the velocity or, in the frequency domain, by dividing by s. The output position is, in effect, subtracted from the input position, which is represented by a direct line from the output to a summing junction with a negative sign into the junction.

Fig. 6E.4 Block diagram for sun tracker (from Ref. 1). The overall transfer function is then easily found by doing block diagram algebra. Fig. 6E.5 shows an intermediate step in the block diagram algebra and the overall transfer function for a position feedback servo system.

Fig. 6E.5 Overall transfer function for the sun tracker (from Ref. 1).

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Karadeniz Technical University F a c u l t y o f En g i n e e r i n g Electrical and Electronics Engineering Prof. Dr. smail H. ALTA

Projects for Students

Project 23 Light Tracking Servo System

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Karadeniz Technical University F a c u l t y o f En g i n e e r i n g Electrical and Electronics Engineering Prof. Dr. smail H. ALTA

Projects for Students

Project 23 Light Tracking Servo System

System Analysis
Several factors effect the dynamic performance and the stability of the light tracking electromechanical servo system. The three major factors in the overall transfer function in Fig. 6E.5 which are of interest are as follows: the gain of the photo detecting circuit and amplifier, K, the inertia of the load, Jeq (weight of the PV panels), and the mechanical dampening factor, Beq (mechanical resistances). A Matlab program, LTSERVO.M, allows the user to vary the above factors and determine the step and frequency response of the system. A listing of LTSERVO.M is available as an illustration of a typical Matlab analysis. Since the electrical and mechanical characteristics of the physical model are not known precisely, a qualitative comparison of the effects of varying the gain, inertia, and damping on both the Matlab program as well as the model are done to demonstrate the similar dynamics of the two systems. Sensitivity to Gain (K) Increasing the gain increases the overall sensitivity of the system to changes in the input light source position. The white knob on the model increases the gain of the system. By increasing the gain, the voltage command is increased for a particular rotational displacement (K is given in volts/radian). At some point of increased gain, the system becomes unstable. This is demonstrated in the time domain response of the system to a step input as shown in Fig. 6E.6. The frequency response for the system is found in Fig. 6E.7. As apparent, the low gain provides an over-damped system. The mid gain provides a near critically damped system and, finally, the largest gain shows a highly oscillatory system. The physical model demonstrates the same characteristics. Turning the potentiometer completely clockwise sets the gain at its maximum. At this gain the system will oscillate when the light source is disturbed. By turning the gain down, the system becomes more stable, but still underdamped. Continuing to turn the gain down, the system becomes overdamped and, at the lowest setting, the system does not respond at all. The gains for the mathematical model simulations shown in Figs. 6E.6 and 6E.7 were determined from a root locus analysis within the Matlab program, LTSERVO.M. Recall that the closed loop poles of the overall transfer function are the zeros of 1 + Go, where Go(s) is the open loop transfer function. The gain, K, appears as a proportionality constant within Go (see Figs. 6E.1 and 6E.5). Thus, one can determine the roots of 1 + Go for several values of K. A plot of the roots (which are the poles of the closed loop transfer function) for each value of gain gives the so-called root locus plot. Matlab has the rlocus, rlocfind, and damp commands which make it rather easy to perform a root locus analysis.

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Karadeniz Technical University F a c u l t y o f En g i n e e r i n g Electrical and Electronics Engineering Prof. Dr. smail H. ALTA

Projects for Students

Project 23 Light Tracking Servo System

Fig. 6E.6 Time domain response sensitivity to gain.

Fig. 6E.7 Frequency domain response sensitivity to gain.

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Karadeniz Technical University F a c u l t y o f En g i n e e r i n g Electrical and Electronics Engineering Prof. Dr. smail H. ALTA

Projects for Students

Project 23 Light Tracking Servo System

Fig. 6E.8 Root locus plot for varying gain.

Fig. 6E.9 Selected numerical results for the root locus analysis. Figures 6E.8 and 6E.9 show the results from the root locus analysis in LTSERVO.M. The open loop system has a single pole at the origin and a pair of complex conjugate poles far into the left hand side (LHS) of the complex plane. As K increases, the pole at the origin moves to the left and the other poles move to the right. At a gain Page 9/13 08.11.2007

Karadeniz Technical University F a c u l t y o f En g i n e e r i n g Electrical and Electronics Engineering Prof. Dr. smail H. ALTA

Projects for Students

Project 23 Light Tracking Servo System

between 16-17 volts/radian, the dominant poles become complex and move to the right. These pole locations are for the closed loop system, and they indicate the expected time domain behavior. Three specific points were selected for illustration (using rlocfind) as shown in Fig. 6E.9. At K = 14 volts/rad the dominant closed loop pole is still real. However, at about 23 volts/rad, the dominant poles are complex and, in particular, the damping ratio is about 0.70. Finally, a gain near 70 volts/rad gives an underdamped system with a damping ratio of about 0.20. For reference, a damping ratio of 0.20 gives a maximum overshoot of about 50%, while gives about 5% overshoot. Clearly, damping in the range of in real systems. is more desirable

From the above analysis, three gains were chosen to illustrate typical behavior for the sun tracking system, as follows: K = 10 volts/radian (gives overdamped response) K = 25 volts/radian (gives underdamped near optimal response) K = 75 volts/radian (highly underdamped behavior) These gains are referred to as low, mid, and high in Figs. 6E.6 and 6E.7. They represent a reasonable illustration of the system behavior with varying gain. These correspond to low, mid, and high gain settings in the physical model using POT2. Sensitivity to Inertia (Jeq) Increasing the inertia is equivalent to increasing the weight of the PV panels on a sun tracking system, or increasing the size of the aluminum bar in the physical model. By increasing the inertia of the tracker, the system becomes more unstable, as demonstrated in Figs. 6E.10 and 6E.11. This conceptually make sense, since the larger the mass (inertia is related to mass in a rotational system), the more difficult it is to stop and turn in the opposite direction. Thus, when a motor command is given to correct a mechanical displacement, the mass moves towards the correct position but over shoots because the momentum of the mass is difficult to stop. The motor then tries to correct in the opposite direction and the cycle continues until it finally settles down (or continues indefinitely if the system is unstable). This behavior can be seen in Fig. 6E.10 where inertia values of 10e-6, 30e6, and 100e-6 kg-m2 were used for the low, mid, and high values, respectively. Increasing the inertia above the reference mid value clearly causes reduced system stability. The inertia also changes the frequency response of the system as demonstrated in Fig. 6E.11. The larger the inertia the slower the system or the lower the break frequency in the Bode plots. The stability reduction with increased inertia can also be observed by comparing the gains at a phase of -180 degrees. As seen in Fig. 6E.11, the high inertia case has the lowest gain margin (difference in gain from 0 db for a phase of -180 degrees). The inertia of the model can be varied by placing weights at the ends of the aluminum bar. This demonstrates nicely the dynamics associated with increased inertia.

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Karadeniz Technical University F a c u l t y o f En g i n e e r i n g Electrical and Electronics Engineering Prof. Dr. smail H. ALTA

Projects for Students

Project 23 Light Tracking Servo System

Fig. 6E.10 Time domain response sensitivity to the system inertia.

Fig. 6E.11 Frequency domain response sensitivity to the system inertia. Damping Factor (Beq) An increase in the damping factor is equivalent to adding friction to the system. The gearing and brushes in the motor, the potentiometer (POT3), and the wire all add friction to this system. An increase in friction tends to stabilize an unstable system as illustrated in Figs. 6E.12 and 6E.13. Damping values of 1e-3, 5e-3, and 50e-3 Nm-s have been used to represent low, mid, and high values of the mechanical damping coefficient. The lower Page 11/13 08.11.2007

Karadeniz Technical University F a c u l t y o f En g i n e e r i n g Electrical and Electronics Engineering Prof. Dr. smail H. ALTA

Projects for Students

Project 23 Light Tracking Servo System

damping factor shows a highly underdamped system. An increase in the damping factor lowers the overshoot of the system and adds stability. This can be demonstrated in the model by turning the gain up to its maximum and disturbing the system to make it oscillate. Then, if one places a finger on the motor shaft, the system will soon stabilize. Both the step and frequency responses show similar behavior with increased damping.

Fig. 6E.12 Time domain response sensitivity to the system damping.

Fig. 6E.13 Frequency domain response sensitivity to the system damping. Conclusions The physical model and the Matlab program, LTSERVO.M, demonstrate the effects of varying the gain, inertia, and damping factor on a light tracking servo system. To design a system which performs to designer's specifications (time response, amount of overshoot, stability, etc.), the correct combination of system friction, Page 12/13 08.11.2007

Karadeniz Technical University F a c u l t y o f En g i n e e r i n g Electrical and Electronics Engineering Prof. Dr. smail H. ALTA

Projects for Students

Project 23 Light Tracking Servo System

mass distribution (inertia), and system gain is crucial. This paper, along with the working physical model, helps one to understand the basic dynamics of the system. The LTSERVO.M program and the physical model allow the user to easily vary the gain, inertia, and damping factor in order to visualize the system's dynamic response to these variations. The variable feedback gain can be used to offset undesirable effects due to high inertia and low damping, as well as simply adjust the dynamic response of the system for near optimal performance.

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