International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 4, Issue 4, April 2014) 146 Simulation Of Fuzzy Logic Controller For Stepper Motor Drive For Abstrction Of Maximum Power From Solar Panel – A Review Roshan Haste 1 , Rupak Lonare 2 , S. L. Shaikh 3 1 Student, 3 Asst. Prof., Dept .of Electrical Engineering WCE, Sangli. 2 Student, Dept .of Electrical Engineering RKDFIST, Bhopal. Abstract—the main objective of this project is to develop and implement a prototype of a controller scheme using latest control algorithms and drives technology to capture maximum sun energy from sun through solar panel in day time. The efficiency of a solar panel is related to the amount of solar energy it acquired, so it is necessary for the panel to track the sun’s position accurately. A new approach to implement a control unit so that the position of the panel is always kept perpendicular to the sun so as to capture maximum amount of energy. In this control unit a new tracking system is proposed, which comprises of a sensor (position), a microcontroller, and a stepper motor. The position sensor (pyranometer) always detects the position of the sensor. This sensor also detects the radiation from the sun. The fuzzy logic control approach is developed in the microcontroller to design a drive unit for stepper motor as well as to detect the sun position. By implementing this tracking system, the solar panel can be perpendicular to the sun at any moment in day time to obtain maximum solar radiation. The resulting structure has high efficiency, low cost and can be easily modified. This improves the performance of regular tracker nearby 30-40%. Keywords—Fuzzy logic controller, stepper motor, pyranometer, solar tracking system, MATLAB/SIMULINK. I. INTRODUCTION Solar tracker has been continuously developed by many scholars with the aim to improve the efficiency of solar energy captured during day time. The position of the solar panel is the most important factor that ensures the optimum capture of solar energy. Solar panel is normally placed and fixed at open area for long period of time with minimum supervision. It is manned for robust application and should not frequently breakdown which may interrupt the power generated by the solar panel. A solar panel receives the most sunlight when it is perpendicular to the sun’s rays, but the sunlight direction changes regularly with changing seasons and weather. Currently, most solar panels are fixed, i.e., the solar array has a fixed orientation to the sky and does not turn to follow the sun. This may contribute that the energy captured is not always maximized as the static placement of the panel limits their area of exposure from the sun. The efficiency with solar tracking methodology is 6.7 percentages higher than that with fixed angle on a horizontal surface. The oriented solar panels in the way of sun tracking would lead to the maximum power and increase the output by 30%-40%; significant enough to make tracking a viable preposition in spite of the enhancement in system cost. The active tracker use motors and gear trains to direct the tracker commanded by a controller responding to the solar direction which typically indicate by real time clock and a sensor. In this proposed unita sensor always detects the position n of the panel and relevant parameters induced by the sun which are transferred to the controller to manipulate the panel, and then yield the maximum energy. So the proposes a closed loop type. II. METHODOLOGY The system structure comprises of three modules, the sensor module, the driver module and the control module. The sensor module aims to convert the received sun light to some kind of signal, and then obtain the position of the sun. The control module generates the operating command depending on the sensor signals and motor as well as solar panel position. The driver module drives the solar panel through the stepper motor to track the sun light. A. The sensor Module: Figure 1. Pyranometer Sensor Since in many number of sun tracking systems the LDR or photodiode have been used as a sensor to detect light radiations. But these sensors are unable to detect the cloudy weather conditions, so it is difficult to the sensor to access the exact solar radiation. In such case the controller is unable to take the proper decision.