Towards optimal solar Tracking: A dynamic programming approachTowards optimal solar Tracking: A dynamic programming approach Πλήρης Δημοσίευση σε Συνέδριο Conference Full Paper 2015-09-262015enThe power output of photovoltaic systems (PVS) increases with the use of effective and efficient solar tracking tech- niques. However, current techniques suffer from several drawbacks in their tracking policy: (i) they usually do not consider the forecasted or prevailing weather conditions; even when they do, they (ii) rely on complex closed-loop con- trollers and sophisticated instruments; and (iii) typically, they do not take the energy consumption of the trackers into ac- count. In this paper, we propose a policy iteration method (along with specialized variants), which is able to calculate near-optimal trajectories for effective and efficient day-ahead solar tracking, based on weather forecasts coming from on- line providers. To account for the energy needs of the tracking system, the technique employs a novel and generic consump- tion model. Our simulations show that the proposed methods can increase the power output of a PVS considerably, when compared to standard solar tracking techniques.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/695-701.29th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence , Austin, US Jennings, R. Nicholas Chalkiadakis, Georgios Panagopoulos, Athanasios Aris