A method for controlling the orientation of a solar module including a single-axis solar tracker orientable about an axis of rotation, and a photovoltaic device supported by said tracker and having upper and lower photoactive faces, including: measurement of a distribution of the solar luminance called incident luminance originating from the incident solar radiation coming from the sky to reach the upper face, said distribution being established according to several elevation angles; measurement of a distribution of the solar luminance called reflected luminance originating from the albedo solar radiation corresponding to the reflection of the solar radiation on the ground to reach the lower face, said distribution being established according to several elevation angles; determination of an optimum orientation considering the measurements of said distributions of the incident and reflected solar luminance; and servo-control of the orientation of the module on said optimum orientation.

Solar array (1) comprising solar modules (3) distributed in rows (10), each solar module comprising solar collector (5) carried by a single-axis solar tracker (4), a reference solar power plant (2) comprising a central reference solar module and at least one secondary reference solar module, and a piloting unit (7) adapted for: piloting the angular orientation of the central reference module according to a central reference orientation setpoint corresponding to an initial orientation setpoint, piloting the orientation of each secondary reference module according to a secondary reference orientation setpoint corresponding to the initial orientation setpoint shifted by a predefined offset angle; receiving an energy production value from each reference module; piloting the orientation of the modules, except for the reference modules, by applying the reference orientation setpoint associated to the reference module having the highest production value.

A robotic actuator comprises a mass manufactured bellows, wherein the mass manufactured bellows allows a volume change by localized bending, and wherein the mass manufactured bellows is formed from a material that has a higher strength in at least two axes relative to at most one other axis, and an end effector, wherein the end effector is coupled to the manufactured bellows.

An aspect of the present disclosure relates to methods and systems for enhancing the flux distribution on a heliostat receiver target. A plurality of mirrors in a heliostat array are caused to vibrate at respective different frequencies. One or more images are captured of the total flux on a heliostat receiver target. Fast Fourier Transforms are performed in real time with respect to the one or more images of the total flux on the heliostat receiver target to obtain frequency domain information. A real time determination is made of the flux contribution by a given individual mirror using the frequency domain information. A desired total flux distribution is determined. One or more of the plurality of mirrors in the heliostat array are caused to be oriented to obtain the desired total flux.

A solar actuator comprises a top coupler, a bottom coupler, and a plurality of fluidic bellows actuators, wherein a fluidic bellows actuator of the plurality of fluidic bellows actuators moves the top coupler relative to the bottom coupler.

A method for measuring heliostats including: a) providing a light source, b) aligning at least some heliostats to be measured in order to reflect light from the light source onto a predefined target point or target area in the sky or in the vicinity of the solar tower; c) moving a flying apparatus having at least one camera along a predefined flight pattern around and over the target point or target area, and simultaneously capturing images of one of the one or more heliostats to be measured by the camera at a predefined time interval; d) evaluating the images wherein a virtual target is calculated from the images by a previously determined or stored capturing position of the corresponding image; e) determining, by the focal point on the virtual target, a target vector of each of the heliostats to be measured and comparing it with a target value.

The invention relates to an apparatus for concentrating cosmic radiation originating from a celestial object, said apparatus comprising: a concentrating optical surface able to reflect incident cosmic radiation toward a target surface OXY, and liable to contain local surface errors and aiming and orientation errors; a system for inspecting the reflective optical surface; means for acquiring images of the optical surface from various viewpoints M.sub.mn (X.sub.mn, y.sub.mn) that are located on the target surface, m varying from 1 to M and n varying from 1 to N, so as to obtain MN images of the optical surface illuminated by the cosmic radiation, with M viewpoints along X and N viewpoints along Y, where M>1, N>1 and M.Math.N30; and a unit for processing the M.Math.N acquired images, which unit is suitable for: calculating the slopes (P)/x and (P)/y for each point P(x,y) of the reflective optical surface, where:

[00001]$\frac{\left(P\right)}{x}=g_X.Math..Math.{\mathrm{.Math.}}_0.Math.\frac{\underset{m=1}{\overset{M}{.Math.}}.Math.\underset{n=1}{\overset{N}{.Math.}}.Math.\mathrm{sign}\left(x_{\mathrm{mn}}^{}\right).Math..Math.L\left(M_{\mathrm{mn}}^{},P\right)}{\underset{m=1}{\overset{M}{.Math.}}.Math.\underset{n=1}{\overset{N}{.Math.}}.Math.L\left(M_{\mathrm{mn}}^{},P\right)},.Math.\mathrm{and}$

Provided are a heliostat calibration, device and a heliostat calibration method that can suppress time-change-dependent control error increases and can reduce calibration frequency. The present invention is provided with: an initial position information acquisition unit that acquires initial position information for a heliostat; a theoretical value calculating unit that calculates from the heliostat initial position information and sun position information a theoretical value that is related to the orientation of the heliostat; a deviation calculation unit that, using as input an actual measured value for the orientation of the heliostat, calculates the deviation between the theoretical value and the actual measured value at least two times a day; and a coordinate calibration unit that, when the deviation exceeds a threshold value, calibrates the coordinates of the heliostat such that the deviation is at or below the threshold value.

A solar actuator comprises a top coupler, a bottom coupler, and a plurality of fluidic bellows actuators, wherein a fluidic bellows actuator of the plurality of fluidic bellows actuators moves the top coupler relative to the bottom coupler.

The invention is a system and method for heliostat mirror control. Here, each heliostat mirror generates a low intensity signal beam, directed at an angle off from the heliostat mirror's high intensity and sensor blinding main beam of reflected solar energy. The low intensity signal beams may be created by reflecting a small portion of the incident solar light at an angle from the main beam, by reflected artificial light, or from lasers shinning onto mirrors from known locations. The signal beams are detected by optical sensors mounted way from the main heliostat receiver focus, and can be used in a closed loop control system to efficiently ensure that individual heliostat mirrors in a heliostat array accurately track sunlight and direct the sunlight to a central receiver. Because heliostat mirrors need not be taken off sun for positioning, the system allows heliostat arrays to be run at high efficiency.