A microcontroller based LED sunphotometer with RF data acquisition

• Main Authors: Llorente, Cesar A., Ongsyping, Benison S., Casas, Paolo Gabriel P., Chan, Matthew Lewis C., San Pedro, Glenn Michael, Vallar, Edgar A., Galvez, Maria Cecilia D.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2015
• Subjects: Astronomical photometry; Atmospheric aerosols; Microcontrollers; Light emitting diodes; Physics
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/1447
• Institution: De La Salle University

A microcontroller based four-channel LED sunphotometer system with RF transceiver system was successfully developed in this study. The control and data acquisition was done wirelessly using a Zigbee RF Transceiver Module. The RF transceiver module was connected to the sun tracking mount and to a personal computer. Sun tracking was done using a quadrant photodiode for feedback control and a mathematical algorithm for tracking the sun for low-sunlight intensity situations. High correlation coefficients were obtained when the data obtained from the four LED channels of the system was compared with a commercial four channel SP02 sunphotometer. With this system, the sun tracking mount can be placed anywhere without the need for long wires as long as there exists a line of sight between the two RF transceiver modules.