Study of Neutral Heave Variation in Semi-Isotropically Designed Stewart Platform Manipulator Based Dual Axis Solar Tracker System

A solar tracker is an integral part of solar energy based renewable power generating plants. A dual axis solar tracker system is found to be the only way to collect maximum solar energy either in the form of heat or light. Although, a low power closed loop control based dual axis solar tracker is very attractive choice but often unable to satisfy both the required tracking accuracy and robustness to external wind gust. The study of low power parallel manipulator based solar tracker system for renewable power generating plants is very promising. The semi-isotropically designed Stewart platform manipulator is found to have remarkable agility in respect of 6-DoF pose and it is very rugged to wind gust. An industry available linear actuator may not fit to the prescribed constrains of leg lengths in a semi-isotropically designed Stewart platform manipulator based solar tracker. In this work a variation in heave for accommodating suitable available linear actuator is studied with respect to deviation in the semi-isotropic well-posed condition of a tracker.