Authors:
Ioannis Paraskevopoulos
and
Emmanuel Tsekleves
Affiliation:
School of Engineering and Design and Brunel University, United Kingdom
Keyword(s):
3D simulation platform, Virtual reality, Photovoltaic, Solar energy harvesting planning tool, Computer simulation tool, Validation study.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Application Domains
;
Military and Defense
;
Simulation and Modeling
Abstract:
The use of photovoltaic (PV) technology for the harvesting of renewable energy is a reality and is widely employed today. However this is mainly focused towards house and industry energy harvesting. Recent development in thin and flexible materials mean that photovoltaic technology can be integrated into wearable computing and expanded to other commercial as well as defence applications. This paper presents work under the Solar Soldier project that is developing a new photovoltaic simulation platform, based on flexible/wearable PVs and by extending commercial 3D design, animation and light analysis software, namely 3DS Max Design. The platform currently under development will allow the semi-automatic simulation of different scenarios and will also enable the unique feature of lighting analysis and data export of animated objects, which currently do not exist in other systems. This paper also presents a validation study of the light analysis simulation platform against actual light m
easurements in an outdoor scenario. This is one of the first systematic and thorough validation studies of 3DS Max Design focusing exclusively in outdoor conditions as all previous studies have focused mainly in indoor settings scenarios. The study results are extremely encouraging showing that the actual measurements and those simulated in 3DS Max Design are very similar.
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