SCADA-Based Heliostat Control System with a Fuzzy Logic Controller for the Heliostat Orientation

In central receiver systems, there are local controls that modify the position of the heliostats, where the trend is to increase the intelligence of the local controls in order to give them greater autonomy from the central control. This document describes the design and construction of a SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition)-based heliostat control system (HCS) with a fuzzy logic controller (FLC) for the orientation control. The HCS includes a supervisory unit with a graphical user interface, a wireless communication network, and a stand-alone remote terminal unit (RTU) implemented on a low-cost microcontroller (MCU). The MCU uses a solar position algorithm with a maximal error of 0.0027° in order to compute the position of the sun and the desired angles of the heliostat, according to a control command sent by the supervisory unit. Afterwards, the FLC orients the heliostat to the desired position. The results show that the RTU can perform all the tasks and calculations for the orientation control by using only one low-cost microcontroller with a mean squared error less than 0.1°. Besides, the FLC orients the heliostat by using the same controller parameters in both axes. Therefore, it is not necessary to tune the controller parameters, as in the traditional PID (Proportional-Integral-Derivative) controllers. The system can be adapted in order to control other two-axis solar-tracking systems.