Stepper motor modeling and control design for a 1.5 square meters heliostat prototype

This paper presents the modeling, closed loop control and simulation of a stepper motor actuator, which is used to control an arrangement of miniheliostats in a solar tower plant located outside of Hermosillo, Sonora desert. The real time results show that the proposed control strategy is able to track the solar sun position. The controller is implemented in real time via LabView computational environment and applied in the solar tower plant facility.