A Novel Solar Tracker with a Foldable Solar Harvesting Mechanism for an Amphibious Robot

Inspired by the solar tracking mechanism that the sunflower can adjust the attitude of its flower disk towards the sun for maximum power efficiency, this paper proposed a novel solar tracker method with a foldable solar harvesting mechanism for an amphibious robot. Using ADAMS simulation, the driving torques of solar panels are generated for servomotors selection and this foldable mechanism is optimized. Using the control of four servomotors, four solar panels is folded up one by one. The fordable compact mechanism can reduce the water resistance and the influence of water flow and improve power harvesting efficiency. With the desired attitude calculated by the robot local position and time, the robot adjusts the attitude of the solar panels towards the sun for maximum power efficiency. Based on the dynamic model of the robot, the attitude control method is developed. Finally, experiments with the robot attitude adjustment were conducted using the robot prototype. Compared with no attitude adjustment, the solar energy harvesting efficiency is improved by 62.4%, which proved the feasibility of the proposed solar tracker.