Sun Sensor Design for Position Detection and Intensity Measurement Using Light Depending Resistors

Abstract:
We suggest a sensor design for sun position detection and sunlight intensity measurement, basically designed with five light depending resistors (ldr) only and being easy to assemble. It is therefore low cost, small and power-saving. The sun position and the sunlight intensity can be measured in three dimensions due to the special arrangement of five light depending resistors. We implemented the signal processing on an Arduino microcontroller and compared real measured sensor data to the calculated sun position and measured sunlight intensity by a light meter. The measured sunlight intensity is further filtered by a moving average. The digital signal processing is simple and can be implemented or integrated on any microcontroller. Our sensor design is suited for longtime battery powered solutions without grid connection as well as for mobile applications such as site analysis for renewable solar energy systems and weather monitoring in meteorology.