General formula for on-axis sun-tracking system and its application
in improving tracking accuracy of solar collector
Solar Energy, (2009)Abstract
Azimuth-elevation and tilt-roll tracking mechanism are among the
most commonly used sun-tracking methods for aiming the solar collector
towards the sun at all times. It has been many decades that each
of these two sun-tracking methods has its own specific suntracking
formula and they are not interrelated. In this paper, the most general
form of sun-tracking formula that embraces all the possible on-axis
tracking methods is presented. The general sun-tracking formula not
only can provide a general mathematical solution, but more significantly
it can improve the sun-tracking accuracy by tackling the installation
error of the solar collector.