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• Solar Tracker Platform Development for Energy Efficiency Improvement of Photovoltaic Panels

  1-6.

  Csaba Szász

  Views:

  188

  Solar energy systems have emerged over the last decades as the cleanest and most abundant renewable energy resources available worldwide. Solar trackers are devices specially developed to enhance the energy efficiency of solar energy systems. This paper presents the design and implementation stages of a reconfigurable hardware technology-based two-axis solar tracker platform, specially conceived to improve the energy efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) panels. The main module of this platform is the NI-MyRIO ready-to-use development system built upon a high-performance Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) processor that controls the entire solar tracker unit. Optimal tracking of the sun movement and obtaining the maximal energy efficiency rate is achieved by simultaneous real-time controlling both the captured sunlight intensity and PV cell temperature magnitudes. In this way, a robust and versatile positioning system has been developed that performs a high precision and accurate tracking pathway. All the control algorithms are implemented there under the LabView graphical programming software toolkit. The final solution boosts in a useful and modularized tracking system that looks useful in a wide range of applications both in industrial and domestic project sites with different power scales.

• Last Generation Mechatronics: a Two-level Platform-based Reconfigurable Technology Approach

  1-7.

  Csaba Szász

  Views:

  124

  As is well known mechatronic systems currently being designed and developed are often difficult multidisciplinary undertakings. Based on the intrinsic coupling of different implementation technologies, efficient design of mechatronic systems is of primordial importance for development of next generation industrial products. This paper is focused to current and future technological trends aimed to improve the design and implementation processes of mechatronic systems in an increasingly harsh industrial environment. Special attention is dedicated to introduction of the two-level platform-based reconfigurable technology approach. This strategy efficiently combines major advantages of both the hardware and software platform-based development trends in modern mecatronic systems. In order to support the unfolded theoretical arguments a last generation and versatile mechatronic system development is presented and discussed in the paper. The mentioned trends can be used as rough orientation for future mechatronic systems research and implementation activities.

• Intelligent Buildings as Cyber-Physical Systems: a Reconfigurable Hardware Technology-based Approach

  1-7.

  Csaba Szász

  Views:

  252

  This paper discusses the idea to change the way to approach intelligent buildings (IBs) development and implementation by taking into account the last evolutions in cyber-physical systems (CPSs). Therefore, the main goal is to extend IBs design engineering with the constraints of systems in a CPS context. As well known, smart buildings are increasingly complex as they integrate many scientific areas and research topics, as well as a large scale of last-generation technologies. At the same time, the Internet has deeply transformed the way to manage information and services, respectively how information is transmitted and computed in cyberspace. The quick management and information processing inside cyber layer challenges the interaction with the physical world in a sense to develop IBs as smart distributed systems or CPSs. In addition to this, the papers emphasize the original idea of developing reconfigurable hardware technology-based (RHT-based) CPS architectures for IBs implementation purposes. The benefits of the RHT application in a CPS context for IBs are widely discussed and analyzed. The unfolded theoretical background has been supported by an implementation example using last generation software technologies. These experiments evidence the advantages and versatility of this challenging implementation paradigm of the latest digital technology, applied for current-state IBs development.