Prototype of Automated Shading Device: Preliminary Development

Abstract

Located in the equator zone, Indonesia receives intense solar radiation throughout the day with the average daily solar radiation around 4 kWh/m². Thus, shading devices particularly movable shading device play an important role to reduce the effects of solar radiation. This study aims to develop external automated shading devices horizontally, the results of the performance test for mechanical and control systems only were reported in this paper. These systems consist of four primary components; window frames and panes, mechanical system, sensors and acquisition data system, and control system. Window frame used Manglid (Manglieta glauca) wood while the windowpanes were developed from corrugated plastic sheet. As a mechanical system, the DC motor stepper with a torque value of 3.6Nm was used as an actuator device to change the rotation angles of the panes. Instead of solar radiation sensor, the TSL2561-illuminance sensor was applied due to its affordability. It was integrated to a microcontroller device (Arduino Mega 2560) and the Arduino IDE was employed to input its algorithms. The control system contained a set of algorithms that enabling the windowpanes to move according to the illuminance received by the sensor and the sun path data input to the program. The two respective performance tests were conducted in the laboratory by illuminating the sensor using an artificial light source and installed the shading device on the test house under actual condition. The results demonstrated that the mechanical and control systems worked properly, and they were synchronized. The accuracy of the sensor was about 53.2–85.8 and the response time for the actuator was less than 3 seconds.