Mobile sensor for clouds shadow detection and direct normal irradiance estimation

Abstract

This paper presents a mobile sensor system to detect and estimate low direct normal irradiance (DNI) areas caused by clouds shadows. This work proposes using a team of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to localise and characterise the shadow of mobile clouds. This information can be used by the plant control system to minimise its effects over a solar plant.

Simulations to test and discuss the algorithm are presented. The work presented here obtains a similar degree of precision as far as the estimation of the shape of the cloud shadow is concerned but with a much faster computational time than other algorithms described in literature.