Design and Development of ZigBee Based Instantaneous Flat-plate Collector Efficiency Measurement System

Computing the efficiency of flat-plate collector is vital in solar thermal system testing. This paper presents the design of ZigBee enabled data acquisition system for instantaneous flat-plate collector efficiency calculation. It involves measurement of parameters like inlet and outlet fluid temperatures, ambient temperature and solar radiation intensity. The designed system has a base station and a sensor node. ZigBee wireless communication protocol is used for communication between the base station and the sensor node for wireless data acquisition. The wireless sensor node which is mounted over the collector plate includes the necessary sensors and associated signal-conditioners. An application program has been developed on LabVIEW platform for data acquisition, processing and analysis and is executed in base station PC. Instantaneous flat-plate collector efficiency is computed and reported.