Arizona Patent of the Month – September 2022
A solar tracker is used to orient a payload toward the sun where a payload might be a solar panel or fresnel reflector. The concept of these devices is to increase efficiency and produce more electricity by ensuring the panel is always oriented towards the sun.
CoroSolar, LLC has designed a dynamic stabilizer to support these solar trackers and expand their states of support. Their design uses a damper and an actuator to create the following states:
- Flexible movement- or damping during normal operation (tracking)
- Rigid/locked – the dynamic stabilizer acts as a restraint.
The stabilizer is actuated by a control system based on the real-time demands on the structure. A variety of sensors are used to gather input including wind speed, direction, snow presence, vibration, and even displacement. If this input indicates there are environmental forces that are pushing the solar tracker to move (e.g. wind is pushing the tracker), the actuator locks the damper which causes the tracker to resist this movement. If the solar tracker needs to move normally to track the sun, the actuator unlocks the damper and movement is allowed.
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