IEEE Albuquerque Section Communications Society & Computer Society Joint Chapter and WIE Affinity Group Monthly Talks
Date and Time
Location
Hosts
Registration
- Date: 30 Oct 2024
- Time: 11:00 PM UTC to 12:00 AM UTC
-
Add Event to Calendar
Speakers
Dr. Matthew Muller
Development of Flexible Wireless Control Architectures for Heliostat Fields
The seminar will provide an overview of the current work in partnership with CaribouLabs to develop wireless architecture specifically for heliostat fields.
The project objective is development of a wireless control hardware and architecture that is built from the ground up to meet the heliostat industry’s wireless needs around (1) Reliability, (2) Performance, 3) Versatility, (4) Security, (5) Cost. Making the hardware open-source and establishing a testbed will accelerate the heliostat industry’s development of low-cost fields. CaribouLabs has designed a wireless communication architecture utilizing software-defined radios for communication distances between 10 and 1500m. The system is versatile in that target metrics are applicable to the wider heliostat industry while being compatibility with dedicated security protocols. NREL is in the process of installing 100 wireless controller nodes at the Flatirons campus over a range of ~1000 m. This testbed will be operated in various communication environments and compared against simulations run by CaribouLabs. Furthermore, the testbed will be available to work with other outside researchers with focus on heliostat wireless communications.
Biography:
Since 2008 Dr. Matthew Muller has been a research engineer within the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s PV Performance and Reliability group. The focus of his work has covered topics such as Photovoltaic (PV) soiling, PV surface coating durability, PV and concentrating PV (CPV) module and system performance, thermal modeling, spectral performance modeling, solar trackers, IEC standards development, test design, prototyping and design of instrumentation, data acquisition systems, programming and data analysis. He is a member of ANSI and has served as a technical expert to develop several IEC standards. Currently he is supporting the development of design qualification standard for heliostats and is co-leading the Heliostat Consortium subtask on components and controls where is applying his years of experience with solar trackers to help reduce the cost of heliostats to achieve the DOE goal of $50/m2. Specific heliostat areas of focus are the development of wireless communications, a low-cost controller, and low-cost composite reflector facets.
Email:
Address:National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), , Golden, United States