Canting heliostats with computer vision and theoretical imaging

Alberto Sánchez-González, Adrián Lozano-Cancelas, Rodrigo Morales-Sánchez and José Carlos Castillo

Renewable Energy, 2022, vol. 200, issue C, 957-969

Abstract: Solar Power Tower technology requires accurate techniques to ensure the optical performance of the heliostats both in commissioning and operation phases. This paper presents a technique based on target reflection to detect and correct canting errors in heliostat facets. A camera mounted on the back of a target heliostat sees an object heliostat and the target facets in reflection. The pixels difference between detected and theoretical borders determines the canting errors. Experiments in a lab scale testbed show that canting errors can be corrected up to an average value of around as low as 0.15 mrad. Experiments were also performed on a real heliostat at Plataforma Solar de Almería. As a result, canting errors (up to 5 mrad) have been reduced below 0.75 mrad. Mirror slope errors, which can be noticeable in large facets, becomes the largest source of inaccuracy in the presented method.

Keywords: Solar power tower; Heliostat optical quality; Pinhole camera model; Edge detection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:200:y:2022:i:c:p:957-969

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2022.10.014

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