LAUSR

A low-cost automated system designed for the acquisition and storage of current, voltage, surface temperature of the panel and solar irradiation of a 100 W photovoltaic panel (PV), operating under real ambient conditions is proposed. The system is based on the electronic loading method, using an Arduino card as a data acquisition system, which takes advantage of the rapid variation of drain-source resistance of a logic level power MOSFET, by applying a generated control signal by the micro controller of the Arduino card. The obtained results show that the system designed is highly stable, accurate and sensitive, capable of recording the current and voltage data supplied by the PV panel under different natural operating conditions, and could be compared with the more sophisticated systems reported in the literature. The system allows monitoring and storing the data for the I-V and P-V curves in the whole range of possible temperature values on the surface of the PV panel and incident solar irradiation, according to the environmental conditions.