View source for Projects:2014S1-01 Development of Fully Automated Educational and Training Tool for Wind and Solar Energy using National Instruments’ ELVIS Based System


== Project Information ==
=== Project Introduction ===
The aim of this project is to develop an integrated experimental module for the ELVIS which can be utilised by university students to gain a better understanding of particularly renewable but also power electronic technologies. The module will be utilised in future Distributed Generation Technologies and Power Electronics courses to provide an improved LabVIEW based practical to connect theoretical concepts with real world conditions.
=== System Architecture ===
The Solar External Hardware block includes: a PV panel; a stepper motor; a lamp box; sensors; and the mechanical structure that holds these components together. The stepper motor controls the angle of the PV panel.  The lamp box will simulate the sun and consists of down lights, down light transformers and a dimmer. Sensors include a temperature sensor and a light intensity sensor. 
The Wind External Hardware block includes: a wind tunnel; wind turbine and generator; and sensors. The generator is a hobby BLDC motor. The sensors include wind speed, temperature and humidity sensors. 
Two PCBs will be designed and constructed in this project. The Experiment PCB will provide circuitry and data acquisition capability required to find the characteristics of the PV panel and the wind turbine. The purpose of the Motherboard PCB is to provide connections from the ELVIS to the Experiment PCB. 
The PC Computer will run an educational LabVIEW program that will be developed in this project. The LabVIEW program will guide students through experiments, and allow students to control on-board and external hardware, take measurements from on-board and external sensors, and analyse those measurements.