Design of an intelligent sensor network for solar panels

• Main Author: Chen, Shengdong.
• Other Authors: So Ping Lam
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Wireless communication systems
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/15997
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Energy industry observers have considered solar energy as an alternative and practical source of energy generation. It is predicted that the world will undergo a major transition in energy sources over the next few decades and clearly solar is one of the popular energy sources. This project is to design an intelligent wireless sensor network for solar panels in Microgrid. Collection of solar energy profile is done through intelligent energy sensors and data which collected will be transmitted using GPRS. From hardware aspect, the system consists of several major controlling components. Intelligent sensors including contact temperature sensor and pyranometer which is able to measure sun light intensity are going to be used. In order to transfer the data we get from the building roof to the lab, Telit GPRS Evaluation Kit has been included too. As from software aspect, in order to control the GPRS Evaluation Kit, AT commands specially for GPRS devices and Python language matching AT commands have been used. To get the data from the Internet we try to use Visual Basic 6.0 to build a form to listen to the designated IP address and gain data. A graphical user interface (GUI) named ION Vista has been introduced for implementation of data display. The data we get can be stored into the database consolidated with ION software and we can invoke them in it. The whole system combines both aspects as mentioned above and performs data transmitting. Further improvement and enhancement are required to overcome the inconvenient way to send and receive data of the GPRS. This can be achieved by using effective software and language for the GPRS system.