Monitoring Photovoltaic Panels Using the ESP32 Microcontroller via low-power Bluetooth Communication

Abstract

In In this paper, we propose a method based on Internet of Objects technology to transmit and monitor in real-time the main parameters of a photovoltaic panel thanks to a low communication Bluetooth communication link, this research mainly consists in integrating and taking full advantage of the ESP32 microcontroller as well as the current sensor and a Bluetooth module. In our study, we will create and initialize a low-consumption Bluetooth communication link to transmit the main parameters of a photovoltaic panel to a paired smartphone device via this Bluetooth link. As the first step in our study, we will use a current sensor to measure the exact value of the intensity of the electric current flowing from the photovoltaic panel, note here, that to reduce measurement errors, we will integrate a voltage divider instead of a voltage sensor to measure the voltage between the terminals of the photovoltaic panel. Then we will use the measured quantities to calculate the other two quantities (power and energy).Finally, we are going to send the four quantities in real-time via this low consumption Bluetooth communication. Note that for better readability, the different values sent are displayed on an LCD screen and the ESP32 serial monitor as well as on a paired smartphone device that receives the data.On the other hand, our project has been implemented and tested with efficiency and without any errors, which shows that our design has succeeded in transmitting data through this low consumption Bluetooth link.