A 25m2 Target-Aligned Heliostat with Closed-Loop Control

  • Thomas Roos
  • Ndumiso Zwane
  • Eu’odia Kruger
  • Strinivasan Perumal
  • Robert Cathro
Conference paper

Abstract

A 25m2 target-aligned research heliostat with closed-loop control, with a theoretical concentration of 80 suns, has been built at CSIR in South Africa. The heliostat has four degrees of freedom: Azimuth, Elevation, Rotation and Pitch. A control system making use of a solar tracker has been developed and tested on a 1.25m2 target-aligned miniheliostat. A tracking accuracy of 3.3 milliradians was obtained. A good focal spot has been obtained with the 25m2 target-aligned research heliostat.

Keywords

Rotation Axis Focal Spot Pitch Axis Solar Tracker Timing Belt 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Tsinghua University Press, Beijing and Springer-Verlag GmbH Berlin Heidelberg 2008

Authors and Affiliations

  • Thomas Roos
    • 1
  • Ndumiso Zwane
    • 1
  • Eu’odia Kruger
    • 1
  • Strinivasan Perumal
    • 2
  • Robert Cathro
    • 3
  1. 1.CSIRPretoriaSouth Africa
  2. 2.Department of Electronic EngineeringUniversity of KwaZulu-NatalDurbanSouth Africa
  3. 3.Denel Saab AerostructuresKempton ParkSouth Africa

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