Authors : Napat Watjanatepin, Patcharanan Sritanauthaikorn and Chaiyant Boonmee
Abstract: The measurement and control of the solar irradiance of the solar simulator are important because of the V-I characteristic test of the solar cell will be needed to adjust the accuracy of the flux. Many techniques were applied to achieve that. For the past two decades, many ideas were introduced to apply the other types of sensors to measure the irradiance. This study aimed to present the analysis of an error of the silicon sensor that can be applied to measure the irradiance and control of the light intensity of the LED-based solar simulator by using LabVIEW. The research tools were the first class pyranometer, data-acquisition devices and the LabVIEW Software. The signal conditioner and amplifier circuit is made by an operational amplifier and the silicon sensor is mono-crystalline cells 90 mA/0.5 V. The results found that the silicon sensor can be used for the irradiance measurement. It can replace the first class pyranometer. The relationship between the measurement results is a linearly. The measurement error by RMSE method is equal to 1.69%. The LabVIEW Software can be applied to control the irradiance of the LEDs-based solar simulator perfectly. However, the controlling time gets a bit of a delay due to the delay time of the signal conditioner and amplifier circuits. The next studies the researcher has to reduce the size of the sensor by apply the photodiode to be an irradiance sensor.
Napat Watjanatepin, Patcharanan Sritanauthaikorn and Chaiyant Boonmee, 2017. Application of the Silicon Sensor to Measure and Control the Irradiance of the Solar Simulator by Using LabVIEW. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 12: 2512-2520.