Design and implementation of a low-cost photovoltaic traffic light signal system

Abstract

Power failures in roads and intersections can cause serious difficulties and dangers due to non-availability of electric power for traffic light signals. Application of solar energy has been increased to power-up the traffic light signals all over the world recently. This paper proposes the application of solar energy in powering traffic signal systems for rural areas with no power grid. A photovoltaic system is used to capture the solar energy. Three B.S. students have involved in this educational project. The implemented system is simple, low-cost and free of maintenance. Captured solar energy is saved into a 12 volts lead-acid battery. A circuit including IC regulator is used to control the flow of charge through the battery instead of a dc-dc converter that lower the price of system controller. Timing of the traffic light is carried out via AVR ATMEGA16 microcontroller. Some software tools that have been used in this project are: PROTEUS for simulation of the circuit, Code vision for programming AVR microcontroller, and Microsoft Excel for plotting the captured data. Experimental results for different angles of radiation at different times of the day are also shown in this paper. © 2012 American Society for Engineering Education.