An Automatic Simulation System for Solar Panel under Indoor Conditions

Abstract: Energy harvesting system is a system which could convert ambient energy into electrical power, its output depends on the energy availability of ambient conditions. For indoor condition, light is a typical available energy, and solar panel could be used to harvest it. To determine the light energy availability of an unknown condition, normally, a lot of measurements is needed, and it will cost a long time. This paper introduced a whole design process of a simulation system, it used modelling method to estimate the energy availability of unknown light condition, and this method is more quickly. A matched measurement system for solar panel and environmental parameters was built firstly. Then, all these environmental parameters were analyzed to find out their influence on solar panel. These parameters, which have relation to the output of the solar panel were thought as influence factors and used for model and classifier building. To get an accurate simulation result, different modeling and classification methods were compared and some suggested methods were picked out. Comparing the simulation result with the real output measurement, the method with minimum error was accepted in the final system. A user interface was built in the end to make this system become more user-friendly. This system could be used to simulate the energy availability of a new condition and analyze the error of simulation results which generated by different methods.