Abstract:
A data logger based on ATMega8 microcontroller has been implemented in this project to measure the solar irradiance. The sensor is Sumoncle RSC 5514 that is a small solar cell utilized as the sensor to measure the amount of irradiance incident to the location measured. Data is acquired through five channel analog to digital converter of the microcontroller and the data given by the sensor will be sent to a computer via USB port. PC software also has been implemented to take the data from USB port. The software is developed in Borland Delphi 6.0 and it can be used to save data in a spreadsheet file and the data can also be shown in a graph. The other function of the PC software is to monitor voltage and current from the solar collector and also to monitor condition of the weather. The system has been tested to measure solar irradiation from a coordinate location of S0050.124' and E134005.056'.