Efficient solar power generation with panel movement control using SystemVerilog and FPGA

The movement of solar panels plays an important role in the capture of sunlight and energy conversion efficiency. Sometimes, a fixed panel does not capture sunlight fully due to the changing Sun’s position. In this chapter, field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based efficient solar power generation is suggested with controlled movement of the solar panel according to the movement of the Sun. The FPGA-based system uses sensors such as light-dependent resistors (LDRs), a control algorithm written in SystemVerilog that controls the stepper motor for rotation of panels. The FPGA offers advantages of parallel processing, reconfigurability, and desired movement, making it a suitable choice for embedded control applications. The simulated results are validated through FPGA-based implementation using a SystemVerilog model with maximum possible test cases. For panel tracking, fuzzy logic control (FLC), genetic algorithm (GA), and particle swarm optimization (PSO) are used to explore the possibilities for performance improvement.