Edwin Cortés-Acevedo ’24, a multidisciplinary engineering technology (MXET) student originally from Saltillo, Mexico, recently represented the Texas A&M University Higher Education Center at McAllen at the 15th International Conference on Industry Applications (INDUSCON).
In November, Cortés-Acevedo led an online presentation to conference attendees in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He explained research findings and presented a simulation of his team’s innovative solar tracking system.
In January, the project was published in the 2023 15th IEEE International Conference on Industry Applications (INDUSCON), a digital library and research database highlighting computer science, electrical engineering and electronics, and related fields.
The project’s team included Cortés-Acevedo, Omar Tapia ’23 and MXET professors Dr. Aldo J. Muñoz-Vázquez and Dr. Iván D. Díaz-Rodríguez. Together, they designed a cutting-edge system that maximizes energy capture and establishes more accurate solar tracking through a robust controller design by means of a robotic system.
The project began in the fall of 2022 when Cortés-Acevedo and Tapia were assigned to complete a high-impact project. They decided to collaborate and came up with the idea after brainstorming ideas.
“I had initially approached Edwin with a handful of project ideas, and we ended up selecting the solar tracking system since it was of mutual interest not just to Edwin and me, but to our professors, Dr. Muñoz and Dr. Rodríguez,” Tapia said.
Muñoz-Vázquez was thrilled to be part of the project from the beginning, he said. “I was visited by Omar and Edwin, who demonstrated great enthusiasm on a robust solar tracking device project that combined robotics and control technology.” Shortly after, he suggested partnering with a colleague familiar with the subject matter.
“Considering Dr. Díaz-Rodríguez's expertise and passion for automation sciences, I suggested a meeting with him to explore the possibilities of this project and potentially create something remarkable.”
Díaz-Rodríguez said, “Dr. Muñoz and I discussed this concept before. I got the idea from a community in a rural area in Mexico that has issues with getting enough potable water. They have a water pump to obtain water from underground, the problem is that they pay a lot of money for electricity every month. I thought one way to help with that electricity bill is to have a solar panel and a water pump that works with solar energy stored in batteries.”
Díaz-Rodríguez said the first step was to develop a system that could efficiently track the sun to harvest the maximum energy possible.
With some theoretical results applied from Muñoz’s research, the team then focused on
getting the energy from the sun and storing it in batteries that connect to the water pump, making it capable of operating even where electricity is not available.
To fund their research efforts, the team turned to the university for support. It received a $1,050 High Impact Practices Grant to develop a simulation of the system.
“The High Impact Practices Grant was an excellent opportunity to develop the first part of the solar tracking system and, at the same time, encourage our students to participate in a research problem, present it at a conference and publish a paper,” said Díaz-Rodríguez.
Tapia graduated from the Higher Education Center at McAllen in May 2023 while the project was still in development. Today, he is a field service engineer for Cencorp Americas LLC, where he specializes in installing production equipment in factories and provides on-site trainings. “It was a great experience because we gained valuable skills and surrounded ourselves with leading field experts, which helped me transition more easily into the industry, where daily encounters with diverse professionals fuel my constant learning and curiosity,” Tapia said.
Cortés-Acevedo is also grateful to have participated in the Autonomous Solar Tracking System project and is excited to graduate in May 2024 and begin a career in areas of mechatronics, robotics, control systems, or systems engineering.
The groundbreaking research is incredibly valuable to the renewable energy industry given its capability of collecting solar energy more efficiently for communities across the globe.
“I’m happy we got the expected results from the study and that our students participated in this project. We plan to continue our work and apply for more funding in the future to resume our research,” Díaz-Rodríguez said.