The invention relates to electric solar trackers moving solar panels and being controlled by a solar tracker controller. More precisely the object of the invention is aimed to a commissioning procedure of solar power plants. The invention accounts for a mesh communications network, multiple gateways respectively associated to each solar tracker controller; the gateways acting between the mesh communication network and a solar plant communications system wherein each solar tracker controller is assigned a unique serial number comprising ID, position on the solar plant of the solar tracker associated to the solar tracker controller. The gateway determining a solar tracker as being available for commissioning and sending configuration data to the solar tracker controller of the solar tracker available for commissioning, the configuration data including information of auxiliary gateways to connect to in case a primary gateway fails.

A system and method for array level terrain based backtracking includes a tracker configured to collect solar irradiance and attached to a rotational mechanism for changing a plane of the tracker and a controller in communication with a rotational mechanism. The controller is programmed to determine a position of the sun at a first specific point in time, retrieve height information, execute a shadow model based on the retrieved height information and the position of the sun, determine a first angle for the tracker; collect an angle for each tracker in a plurality of trackers in an array; adjust the first angle based on executing the shadow model with the first angle and the plurality of angles associated with the plurality of trackers; transmit instructions to the rotational mechanism to change the plane of the tracker to the adjusted first angle.

An image-stream windowing method includes capturing, with a camera located at a fixed position and having a fixed field of view, a high-resolution image stream of an object that moves during said capturing. The high-resolution image stream includes a sequence of high-resolution frames. The method also includes determining, for each high-resolution frame of the sequence of high-resolution frames, a respective window, of a sequence of windows corresponding to the sequence of high-resolution frames, that encloses the object within said each high-resolution frame. The size and location of the respective window are determined based at least on the fixed position, the fixed field of view, and a position of the object. The method also includes generating a low-resolution image stream from the high-resolution image stream by cropping said each high-resolution frame with its respective window.

System and method for determining a position of a target in an unbiased 3D measurement space: generating 2D measurement data in focal planes of each sensor; calculating a line of sight (LOS) from the target for each sensor; intersecting the LOSs and finding the closest intersection point in a 3D space; calculating a boresight LOS in 3D for each sensor; intersecting the boresight lines of sights for each sensor, and finding the closest intersection point in the 3D space to define an origin for forming the unbiased 3D measurement space; and forming local unbiased 3D estimates of the position of the target in the unbiased 3D measurement space as a difference between a closest point of the target LOS and a closest point of the boresight LOS.

Solar trackers that may be advantageously employed on sloped and/or variable terrain to rotate solar panels to track motion of the sun across the sky include bearing assemblies and other mechanical features configured to address mechanical challenges posed by the sloped and/or variable terrain that might otherwise prevent or complicate use of solar trackers on such terrain.

A management server in communication with one or more object tracking devices is disclosed. The management server may receive location information, configuration information, and orientation information associated with the one or more object tracking devices. Based at least in part on the location information, the management server may receive weather information associated with the locations of the one or more object tracking devices. Based at least in part on the location information, the weather information, the configuration information, and the orientation information, the management server can determine power generated and power consumed by the one or more object tracking devices, which then can be used to determine estimated operation time for the one or more object tracking devices.

A method for controlling the orientation of a solar module (1) comprising a single-axis solar tracker (2) orientable about an axis of rotation (A), and a photovoltaic device (3) supported by said tracker and having upper and lower photoactive faces, comprising the followings steps:

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;

servo-control of the orientation of the module on said optimum orientation.

A wearable apparatus and method are provided for capturing image data. In one implementation, a wearable apparatus for capturing image data is provided. The wearable apparatus includes at least one image sensor for capturing image data of an environment of a user, wherein a field of view of the image sensor includes a chin of the user. The wearable apparatus includes two or more microphones, and an attachment mechanism configured to enable the image sensor and microphones to be worn by the user. The wearable apparatus includes a processing device programmed to capture at least one image, identify the chin of the user to obtain a location of the chin, select a microphone from the two or more microphones based on the location, process input from the selected microphone using a first processing scheme, and process input from a microphone that is not selected using a second processing scheme.

A method may include obtaining current data from a sensor related to performance of a solar power generating device, and comparing the current data from the sensor to previously stored data to detect a decrease in expected power generation. The method may also include determining whether the decrease in expected power generation is designated a persistently occurring decrease, and, based on the designation of the decrease as being persistent, changing an orientation of the solar power generating device to a stowed orientation.

An operation device according to an aspect of the invention includes: a receiving unit that receives images; a tracking target receiving unit that receives a specified tracking target which is tracked by the camera; a movement amount calculation unit that calculates the amount of movement of the tracking target in the images; a movement amount determination unit that determines whether the amount of movement calculated by the movement amount calculation unit is equal to or greater than a first movement amount threshold value; and a size instruction transmission unit that transmits an instruction to change the size of the image transmitted by the camera from a first size to a second size smaller than the first size to the camera in a case in which the movement amount determination unit determines that the amount of movement is equal to or greater than the first movement amount threshold value.