Internet of Things-Based Solar Tracker System

Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, along with economies of scale and advances in hardware, software, and network technologies, have accelerated the explosion of connected objects across the Internet. A connected object can be controlled online from an IoT platform and can send, receive, and process various and varied data. In this chapter, we leverage some of the IoT technologies to propose a simple and low-cost IoT solution to monitor and control a smart dual-axis solar tracker system for performance evaluation. The solution also includes alert notifications to inform a remote user through phone or mail (or both) when a sensor has reached a certain predefined event. The solution is designed based on low-cost and easy-to-use hardware and software and an online open-source IoT platform. The design aspects of the IoT-based solar tracker are extensively described in this chapter. Moreover, a prototype of the IoT-based solar tracker has been manufactured and tested. Test results demonstrate that solar tracker data can be sent easily and properly and can be directly monitored online, as well as the solar tracker, can take commands from the IoT monitoring application.