Spartan Superway Post

One of the issues we talked about last meeting was miles and miles of solar panels that need to be installed. Since there will be a large number of solar panels installed, passive solar panels will probably be the best option.  After doing a bit of research, I came across an article talking about a possible solution for maximum power absorption. The article titled "Maximum power point tracking for low power photovoltaic solar panels", has researchers testing the circuit with an impressive 40 mW to operate. Applications as low as 50W to power can still benefit from this. The computational unit within the circuit requires 20 mA from a 5V source in busy times, while only 4 mA in sleep mode. This system can be a possible solution to our needs in power. If we can get this circuit to work, the Spartan Superway can change to higher quality solar panels if need be. Monocrystalline silicon solar panels can be used since the thin-film solar cells are the only ones that can bend.

Monocrystalline silicon solar panels

References

Bodur, M., & Ermiş, M. (1994, April). Maximum power point tracking for low power photovoltaic solar panels. In Electrotechnical Conference, 1994. Proceedings., 7th Mediterranean (pp. 758-761). IEEE.