JP2014009913A - System for communication control of heliostat and method of the same - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a system for communication control of heliostat which has a small size, a light weight and a low cost.SOLUTION: A system for communication control system of a plurality of heliostats which reflect solar light to a target in conjugation with diurnal motion of sun includes: a main controller (5) which is connected to networks (50, 51) and gains positional information of the sun; and controllers are connected to the networks as the controller (10) of each heliostat and controls drivers (32, 33) of rotation actuators (30, 31) for performing attitude control of the heliostat. Further, the main controller simultaneously transmits the positional information of the sun via the networks and the controller of each heliostat calculates an attitude thereof to direct reflection light to the target based on the positional information of the sun and the heliostat and controls the drivers.

Description

  The present invention relates to communication control of a heliostat that is linked to the diurnal motion of the sun.

  Stepping motors are used as inexpensive motors in sun tracking and heliostat driving. A commercially available stepping motor driver performs positioning according to instructions from the controller by inputting positioning pulses.

  However, in actual use, the controller and the driver are installed apart from each other, and when the number of drivers is several hundreds or thousands, wiring and control become difficult. Furthermore, the controller becomes expensive because the attitude of all heliostats is calculated by one controller. Furthermore, if the attitude of each heliostat is transmitted via the network, there is a problem that the burden on the network becomes heavy and it is difficult to perform precise control in real time.

Special table 2012-50486 gazette

  The present invention has been made paying attention to such related technology, and according to the present invention, the driver of each heliostat can obtain the attitude of the reflector by performing simple calculations, and further, the burden on the network. Therefore, it is possible to provide a communication control system and method for a heliostat capable of managing all heliostats in real time with a single main controller.

  According to the technical aspect of the present invention, a communication control system for a plurality of heliostats that reflects sunlight to a target in conjunction with the diurnal motion of the sun includes a controller that is connected to a network and acquires position information of the sun. A controller for each heliostat that controls a driver of a rotary actuator that is connected to the network and controls the attitude of the heliostat, and the control unit receives the position information of the sun via the network. And the controller of each heliostat calculates the attitude for the reflected light to direct the target based on the position information of the sun and the position information of the heliostat, and controls the driver It is characterized by.

  According to another technical aspect of the present invention, a communication control method for a plurality of heliostats that reflects sunlight to a target in conjunction with diurnal motion of the sun acquires (calculates) position information of the sun. , Simultaneously transmitting the solar position information to the plurality of heliostats via a network, and in each heliostat, reflected light is directed to the target based on the solar position information and the heliostat position information. Calculating attitude information of each heliostat, and controlling the attitude of each heliostat based on the attitude information.

The conceptual diagram which shows the communication control system of the heliostat which concerns on embodiment of this invention. The block diagram which shows the structure of a stepping motor controller.

  1 to 2 are diagrams showing a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

  A heliostat is a device that drives a reflector (not shown) biaxially to reflect sunlight toward a target (not shown) fixed on the ground while tracking the sun. The reflector is supported by a fixed graticule (horizontal coordinate system) so that it can rotate freely in the azimuth direction (Azimuth) and altitude direction (Elevation). Although the sun moves due to diurnal motion, the mirror's center of rotation is fixed to the target, so the reflector's attitude (azimuth and altitude) always reflects the target to the target according to time and season. Controlled.

  Stepping motors 30 and 31 as rotary actuators are two-axis stepping motors that control the posture so as to direct the azimuth and altitude rotational positions of the reflecting mirror.

  FIG. 1 shows a communication control system 1 for a heliostat. A main controller 5 acquires real-time sun position information and transmits it to each stepping motor controller 10 via networks 51 and 50. The physical layers of the networks 51 and 50 are configured by RS485 specifications (IEA-485 specifications), and the upper network 51 is connected to the main controller 5 having an RS485 interface and 250 repeaters (# 1 to # 250). The RS485 network is a two-wire multipoint network. Usually, the pulse controller 12 is a master and the repeater 8 is a slave. Note that a known communication protocol such as Modbus can be used.

  Furthermore, the lower network 50 connected to each repeater 8 also constitutes an RS485 network. Each repeater 8 includes an RS485 interface of the upper network 51 and an RS485 interface of the lower network 50. The lower network 50 is a two-wire multipoint network in which each repeater 8 having an RS485 interface and 250 stepping motor controllers 10 are connected. As a result, the main controller 5 and 62500 stepping motor controllers 10 are connected to each other via the RS485 networks 50 and 51.

  Although the pulse controller 12 can designate a specific stepping motor controller 10 via the upper network 51 and the lower network 50, in this embodiment, a mode in which all the stepping motor controllers 10 are simultaneously transmitted is used.

  Each heliostat has a stepping motor controller 10 that controls driving of the respective stepping motors 30 and 31. Each stepping motor controller 10 determines the position (azimuth angle, azimuth angle, etc.) of each reflecting mirror based on the position information of the sun received via the RS485 interface 18 and the position information unique to each heliostat previously input to the storage device 21 such as an EEPROM. Altitude) in real time. Since this calculation is equivalent to obtaining the specular reflection angle, it can be easily calculated by the small CPU 11.

  The CPU 11 outputs the calculated posture information as a command to the motor driver 13 (14) via the pulse controller 12. The pulse controller 12 is a logic circuit that generates a control signal for the stepping motor 30 (31) as a rotary actuator based on a command from the CPU 11, and is typically a CPLD.

  The sensor 34 is a sensor for specifying a reference position for returning the origin of the heliostat, and the signal is input to the CPU via the interface circuit I / F. In addition, by connecting a detachable PC 41 or information terminal (touch panel) via the RS232C interface 19 or the like, the setting value stored in the stepping motor controller 10 can be changed, the program can be updated, and the operation status can be monitored. it can. The power of the stepping motor controller 10 is supplied from a control power supply 20 connected to an external DC power supply 42.

  The heliostat communication control method according to the present embodiment will be described below.

  The main controller 5 acquires sun position information in real time. Specifically, using a known solar position calculation algorithm, position information regarding the azimuth direction and altitude of the sun is calculated in real time from the installation position and time information of the heliostat.

  Further, the main controller 5 sequentially transmits the sun position information to all the stepping motor controllers 10 via the networks 51 and 50 by simultaneous broadcast communication.

  Each stepping motor controller 10 holds position information unique to the heliostat (information on the relative position of each reflector and target) in the storage device 21 or the like, and the mirror surface is obtained from the position information of the sun and the position information unique to each reflector. The target posture (azimuth angle, altitude) of the mirror surface in reflection is calculated. On the other hand, the actual posture of the reflecting mirror is acquired by the encoders 32 and 33 via the receivers 15 and 16.

  The CPU 11 calculates the rotation amount (azimuth, altitude) of the reflecting mirror based on the posture of the reflecting mirror and the target posture, and outputs it to the pulse controller 12. The stepping motor 30 that controls the rotational position in the azimuth direction and the stepping motor 31 that controls the rotational position in the altitude direction form a biaxial stepping motor that controls the attitude of the reflecting mirror. The motor driver 13 (14) drives the stepping motor 30 (31) based on the control signal of the pulse controller 12 to move the reflecting mirror to a predetermined posture.

  Since the relative position of each heliostat and target varies depending on the installation position, each stepping motor controller 10 individually performs posture control. Since the sun position information is calculated by the main controller 5 and transmitted at the same time, each stepping motor controller 10 only needs to calculate a simple specular reflection.

  The reflected light can always be directed to the target by tracking the sun moving in a diurnal motion by sequentially repeating the above operations.

  According to the present invention, since one main controller sequentially calculates and transmits the solar position information, the burden on the network is small, and the attitudes of a large number of heliostats can be precisely controlled in real time. Moreover, since the stepping motor controller of each heliostat can acquire the attitude | position of a reflective mirror only by calculating simple mirror surface calculation based on the received positional information on the sun, it can be comprised small and cheaply. In other words, since the calculation of the reflector's attitude is distributed to the main controller and each stepping motor controller, the network load is reduced, and all heliostats can be controlled by one small main controller, so the entire communication control system Costs can be reduced.

1 Control System 5 Main Controller 8 Repeater 10 Stepping Motor Controller 11 CPU
12 Pulse controller 13, 14 Motor driver 15, 16 Receiver 30, 31 Stepping motor 32, 33 Encoder 21 Storage device 50, 51 Multipoint network

Claims (3)

A communication control system for a plurality of heliostats that reflects sunlight to the target in conjunction with the diurnal motion of the sun,
A main controller (5) connected to the network (50, 51) for acquiring position information of the sun;
A controller (10) for each heliostat for controlling a driver (32, 33) of a rotary actuator (30, 31) connected to the network and controlling the attitude of the heliostat;
The main controller transmits the sun position information to the plurality of heliostats via a network,
The controller of each heliostat calculates a posture for reflected light to direct to the target based on the position information of the sun and the position information of the heliostat, and controls the driver. Communication control system.   The network includes a first network (51) that connects the main controller (5) and a plurality of repeaters (8), and a first network (51) that connects the plurality of repeaters and the controller (10) of the heliostat. The communication control system for a plurality of heliostats according to claim 1, wherein the communication control system comprises two networks (50). A method for controlling a plurality of heliostats that reflect sunlight to a target in conjunction with the diurnal motion of the sun,
Getting sun position information,
Simultaneously transmitting the solar position information to the plurality of heliostats via a network;
In each heliostat, calculating attitude information of the heliostat for directing reflected light to the target based on the received position information of the sun and position information unique to the heliostat;
Controlling a posture of each heliostat based on the posture information.

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