SIMULATION OF PHOTOVOLTAICS FOR DEFENCE AND

COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS BY EXTENDING EXISTING

3D AUTHORING SOFTWARE

A Validation Study

Ioannis Paraskevopoulos and Emmanuel Tsekleves

School of Engineering and Design, Brunel University, Uxbridge, London, U.K.

Keywords: 3D simulation platform, Virtual reality, Photovoltaic, Solar energy harvesting planning tool, Computer

simulation tool, Validation study.

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 measurements 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.

1 INTRODUCTION

Renewable energy technology such as photovoltaics

(PV) has become an important energy generation

solution that is friendly to the environment.

Nowadays there is a dramatic increase in the use of

PV for commercial applications outdoors, ranging

from powering street lights to house-energy

generation. Although most PV efforts are currently

focused on the commercial market there are

opportunities for extending this even further with the

use of PVs for a wider range of commercial

applications (i.e. mobile phone, as well as indoors

use) as well as defence applications. This is further

facilitated by the recent development of thin,

flexible and wearable PVs that allow them to be

integrated onto of textile material such as clothing.

One of the key issues though for the adoption of

such technology is the correct placement (this

depends on factors such as location, weather, etc) of

PVs on buildings, other infrastructure as well as

humans in order to maximize energy generation.

This paper presents work funded under the

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research

Council and Defence Science and Technology

Laboratory (EPSRC/DSTL) funded Solar Soldier

project that aims at developing an integrated

wearable Photovoltaic – Thermoelectric (PV-TE) for

defence applications.

The paper presents a brief overview of the design

and development of a PV planning and simulation

platform that employs and extends commercial 3D

tools such as 3D Studio Max Design (3DSMD). It

also presents a validation study that compares actual

outdoor light intensity data against those of the

3DSMD light analysis system to investigate its

effectiveness and efficiency. Lastly it offers a

discussion on the proposed future work.

366

Paraskevopoulos I. and Tsekleves E..

SIMULATION OF PHOTOVOLTAICS FOR DEFENCE AND COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS BY EXTENDING EXISTING 3D AUTHORING SOFTWARE

- A Validation Study.

DOI: 10.5220/0003607203660373

In Proceedings of 1st International Conference on Simulation and Modeling Methodologies, Technologies and Applications (SIMULTECH-2011), pages

366-373

ISBN: 978-989-8425-78-2

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

2 SOLAR SOLDIER

2.1 Project Background

The Solar Soldier is an EPSRC/DSTL jointly funded

project and is comprised of a consortium of UK

universities

. The type of warfare as well as the

humanitarian campaigns we are engaged in

nowadays uses foot soldiers a lot more, resulting in

soldiers having to carry equipment that often reach

and sometimes exceed fifty kilos with several of

these including bulky and heavy batteries to power

several of the electronic equipment soldiers use. The

challenge here is to reduce this physical burden on

the modern infantry soldier moving towards a

battery-free solution. The project received a lot of

media attention recently with an article notably by

the Daily Mail

and Discovery News

as well as

being translated in several languages.

The aim of the Solar Soldier project is to design

and develop a system that integrate photovoltaic

(PV) and thermoelectric (TE) energy to power

several of these electronic equipment reducing

therefore the need to carry batteries. Both PV and

TE will be integrated onto the infantry soldier using

advanced and novel flexible and nanostructures of

the required materials. The idea is that during the

day the system will collect light energy using the

PV, then during the night we can use the heat from

the soldier, and the outside temperature which is

much lower, to generate power. Due to the novelty

of the project and the brief time duration of two

years, the system to be developed at the end of the

project will be a small-scale prototype.

2.2 Our Motivation and Aims

This project raises a number of challenges which

lead to the design and development of a 3D

simulation platform that is presented in this paper:

a) how to integrate best this technology into the

infantry soldier since the final outcome of the

project will develop a small scale prototype.

Jointly funded by EPSRC/DSTL. The consortium includes

Glasgow University (PI), Loughborough University, Strathclyde

University, Leeds University, University of Reading and Brunel

University.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1366173/Solar-so

ldier-scientists-developing-power-pack-British-troops-50-lighter.

html

http://news.discovery.com/tech/battlefield-battery-packs-work-

day-and-night-110316.html

b) how to access the incorporation of the PV/TE

technology on the infantry soldier.

c) how to simulate the use of the PV/TE technology

based on soldier’s different fields and types of

operations (e.g. movement, environment, and under

different light conditions).

Therefore our key aim is to investigate the most

efficient and effective placement of the PV/TE on

the soldier’s uniform and kit to generate the highest

amount of energy, without detracting the soldier

from his main job and taking into account the very

specialized and demanding requirements of the

infantry soldier. Furthermore, the required

simulation platform has to be capable of performing

analysis of a scene with objects (human avatar) in

motion. This is a feature that is not available in any

of the current commercial lighting or thermal

analysis simulation software packages.

2.3 The 3D Simulation Platform

Following the aforementioned aims and

requirements we are in the process of designing and

developing a 3D simulation platform. We have also

liaised with DSTL and have received valuable

information and user requirements as possible

scenarios for the placements of the PV-TE on the

soldiers. We intend to simulate these scenarios

within the platform and compare the output data for

each one of these.

More precisely the platform consists of easy-to-

use and step-by-step panels on each of which the

user can adjust the landscape, human avatar (i.e.

soldier, civilian), type of movement and light

condition combination. Thus, semi-automatically the

user can create a virtual environment/scenario

comprising of an animated virtual human where

light sensors can be placed upon him/her to be

analyzed in terms of lighting conditions. The first

step of the wizard (illustrated in figure 1) allows the

user to select the landscape among a range of

available models, as well as import his/her own. It

also provides the ability of slight adjustments of

those landscapes (e.g. the density of vegetation on

the forest scene). Next, the human avatar (virtual

soldier in the case of our project) is adjusted in terms

of equipment it carries and the range of movements

again selected from the available library of animated

movements. The range of animated movements

matches the range of movements that the soldier

performs during several military operations (e.g.

march, guard, patrol, etc). Lastly, the lighting

conditions have to be modified as explained in the

Methodology section of the Platform Validation

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section of the paper. The user defines the date, the

time of day, the light intensity of the source (mr

Sun) and the geographical location in order to

reconstruct the actual conditions under investigation.

Figure 1: The first step of the 3D Simulation platform.

The end product of this procedure would be a

virtual scene with equal daylight and same

architectural characteristics as a corresponding real

place and an animated human avatar with virtual

light sensors attached ready to be analyzed in terms

of light levels. Figures 2 and 3 illustrate two

examples of the aforementioned rendered outcome.

The analysis of a scene containing virtual sensor in

movement is a unique feature, which none of

commercially available software intended to perform

such kind of simulations include it in their list of

features. That is the main reason we chose 3DSMD,

since with its state-of-the-art animation and lighting

analysis capabilities and its powerful integrated

Application Programming Interface (API), it

provides an unswerving foundation for developing

such a unique tool as the one proposed by this

project. The attached virtual light sensors yield light

intensity values on the uniform of the avatar. These

values are exported in a specific data format and are

stored externally from the platform for later

evaluation such as statistical analysis. The use of

3DSMD’s incorporated API named MaxScript

enables the programming of that procedure. We use

a special file inport/export element of the API in

order to collect and export the results of the

animated scene in a spreadsheet in Comma

Separated Values (CSV) format which is compatible

with Microsoft Excel and other spreadsheet software

in order to enable the user to further analyse the

statistical data. In addition to this a number of

formulas can be added so that based on the gathered,

from the light sources data, one can calculate the

solar energy to be produced for the given simulated

time duration. This platform is currently under

development. For this reason we present here a

validation of a still scene since the animated scene

functionality is still under development and only

preliminary results have been recorded.

Figure 2: Rendered image of a light analysed scene.

Figure 3: Rendered image of a light animated scene.

In recent years there has been a lot of research

and publications in the area of PV effectiveness and

materials such as the work of

Bhubaneswari,

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Applications

368

Iniyan, Ranko (2011) and the work of Chow (2010)

(as well that that of many others, which is beyond

the scope of this paper) that summarise the solar

photovoltaic technologies as a review including the

perspective of effectiveness and materials.

However there is limited work conducted and

published in the area of PV simulation tools. The list

of those publications include the work of Reinders

(2007),

Reich, van Sark, Turkenburg, Sinke, (2010)

and

the earlier mathematical simulation approach by

Reinders, van Dijk, Wiemken and Turkenburg

(1999). There have been autonomous software

developed in the boundaries of other academic

projects like the work of Chryssoluris, Mavrikios

Fragos and Karabatsou (2000) and the work

conducted by Abdel-Malek, Yang, Kim, Marler,

Beck, Swan, Frey-Law, Mathai, Murphy

Rahmatallah and Arora (2007) and Yang,

Rahmatalla, Marler, Adbel-Malek and Harrison

(2007) for the project of SantosTM as well as the

work of Shaikh, Jarayam, Jarayam and Palmer

(2004), Honglun, Shouqian and Yumhe (2007) and

Lind, Krassi, Viitaniemi, Kiviranta, Heilala and

Berlin (2008) that demonstrate the use of virtual

avatars and environments but these studies focus

mainly on the perspective of ergonomics and human

factors and not the integration, planning and

simulation of PVs on human virtual avatars. Also

none of the above is an extension to a commercially

available software package. Our study is the first

that utilizes virtual reality in a technical manner in

order to acquire measurements of a physical quantity

such as the light intensity into a virtual environment

incorporating mobile objects (PIPVs in movement).

3 PLATFORM VALIDATION

The validation study of 3DSMD lighting analysis

tool, especially in outdoors condition, forms an

essential and a significant task in our project, since

we wish to ascertain how close to the actual

condition our simulation platform would be. As

already mentioned we have selected to extend the

Autodesk 3DS Max and Max Design tools,

especially as the later offers a built-in light analysis

tool. The light analysis tool is based on the

ExposureTM plug-in and it has been so far mainly

employed for interior light analysis by architects and

interior designers. There is also a validation study

conducted by Reinhart and Breton (2009) at the

National Research Council of Canada (NRCC) but

this also mainly focuses on an interior scenario with

a very brief and unsystematic validation in an

external condition/scenario. Thus the utilization of

the tool for exterior use has not been widely used

and there is a lack of thorough and systematic

validation studies focusing on outdoor conditions.

3.1 Methodology

The validation study of the 3DSMD lighting analysis

tool could be satisfied only by providing two

essential requirements. These are access to light

intensity data measurements (measured in lux) of a

particular place, with long time intervals defined

(e.g. days or months) and the precise 3D CAD

model of this place. Thankfully for the purposes of

this study, Brunel University runs two, unrelated to

this, projects that fulfil the aforementioned

requirements. Light intensity data are collected on a

daily basis since October 2006 by the weather

station of the SunnyBoy project conducted by

Chowdhury, Day, Taylor, Chowdhury, Markvart and

Song (2008). The aim of this project is the data

acquisition and performance analysis of a PV array

installed within the Brunel campus as illustrated in

Figure 4.

Figure 4: Rendered image of the Brunel University 3D

Campus project.

The next element towards this study is the 3D

model of the campus. Accurate models of this are

also available by a past project of Brunel University.

Therefore, the basic toolset of the study is acquired

and the next step is the modification of the

simulation setup.

3.2 Simulation Setup

A number of scenarios have been set up for this

study. These scenarios cover all the possible

daylight conditions, which are three. Namely a

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sunny, a partially cloudy and a cloudy day. For this

purpose, we chose three corresponding days to those

conditions. These days were selected based on

weather forecasts and observation and light intensity

values collected with the proper equipment (lux

meter) on site during those particular dates. The

investigated scenarios are defined in Table 1.

Table 1: Lighting Simulation Setup Scenarios.

Scenario DaylightCondition Date

SC1

Sunny day 03-June-2010

SC2

Partially cloudy day 25-October-2010

SC3

Cloudy day

17-Novembe

2010

3.3 Lighting Analysis Rendering Setup

The light analysis system requires a virtual sensor to

be designed in the scene in order to yield results for

this sensor. The weather station is located on the

spot indicated by the red star in Figure 4. Therefore,

a lighting analysis sensor (Light Meter) is designed

on the exact same spot with the corresponding area

that the measurements were conducted. The lighting

analysis in 3DSMD uses mental-ray to simulate

physical lighting, thus the accuracy of the results lie

beneath the precision of the rendering settings. The

lighting analysis assistant by ExposureTM plug-in

provides a Lighting Analysis Render Preset of

adjustments for the parameters of the simulation. It

utilizes the mental-ray raytracer with the method of

backward raytracing and with Raytrace and Final

Gather setting enabled as referred in the Functional

overview of mental ray v1.5 by mental-images

(2007). The only modification to that preset,

required for reasons of presentation, is the scaling of

the Analysis of Value Colour Coding. The minimum

illuminance value in lux is 0 which corresponds to

darkness and the maximum is set to 120,000 lux

which is the typical maximum illuminance value for

a clear sky day.

3.4 Lighting System Setup

The lighting system has to be setup too. Although

3DSMD as mentioned above utilizes ExposureTM

plug-in for lighting analysis, there have been some

studies such as the study of Reich, (2010) that adopt

a different approach, scaling visible light to yield

energy levels. In the case of this study, the lighting

system of Exposure is used by employing the Perez-

all Weather sky model as mentioned in both the

daylight simulation guidelines by Autodesk (1), (2)

(2009). The daylight system in our setup is the mr

Sun and mr Sky and we set the longitude and

latitude of the landscape to 51.53285º and -0.47283º

respectively, which is the exact position of Brunel

University.

3.5 Material Adjustments

Another simulation parameter that has to be

adjusted, according to the Daylight Simulation guide

provided by Autodesk (1), (2) (2009), are the

materials of the 3D objects as those define the

optical properties of the objects. The only applicable

materials for lighting analysis by default are the mr

Architectural Design materials and the

“ProMaterials”. As indicated in the study by

Reinhart (2009) these materials are complex in terms

of parameters whilst accuracy lies in the detail. In an

outdoor scenario like the one examined in this paper,

the light values are far higher than an indoor

scenario and shading is less, consequently the

accuracy of results is not highly material dependent.

Thus, materials that match the optical properties and

colour of the actual architectural structures are

utilized. These include the effects of reflectance of

solar rays on the surfaces as accurately as possible.

Furthermore, in every scene object a map is

assigned, which increases the precision of the optical

properties in complex materials like the camouflage

and vegetation. The map assigned along with the

appropriate shader will provide the object with the

optical properties required.

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The results of the validation study as well as our

proposed future work are offered in this section.

4.1 Platform Validation Results

Every single value of light intensity (lux) that

corresponds to a specific time during the day has to

be simulated within 3DSMD. After that all the

resulting virtual values are plotted in graphs and

contrasted with the graph constructed by the actual

measurements.

For the three different scenarios of the study there

are 6 plots compared in pairs resulting to three

graphs as illustrated in Figures 5, 6 and 7. The Y

axis represents the illuminance values measured in

lux. The higher the lux values are the higher are the

light intensity values that reach the PV panel. The X

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axis represents the time of the specified day. One

may notice that across the three figures the overall

time duration varies by a few hours. This is due to

the specific date and season that these measurements

took place.

Figure 5: Scenario 1 – Sunny Day.

Figure 6: Scenario 2 – Partially Cloudy Day.

For instance the measurement of Figure 5 was

taken place during summer, whereas the one in

Figure 6 is in winter, where there is light for less

parts of the day. The values demonstrated in the

figures are taken on a five minute interval. The

changes seen in the lines (peaks and drops) simply

illustrate the amount of light in lux that the

measurement devices record and simulated in

3DSMD. Thus if the sun is on the middle of the sky

with no clouds obstructing it there is a peak (high

lux value). If on the other hand there is a cloud

passing between the sun and the measurement unit

the lux level drops.

Figure 7: Scenario 3 – Cloudy Day.

The results clearly demonstrate that for any

outdoor daylight condition scenario the lighting

analysis tool of the 3D software yields values of

light levels extremely close to the actual

measurements. More precisely for sunny days, as

illustrated in figure 5, the values generated by

3DSMD and those of the actual measurements are

very much the same. In the case of a partially cloudy

day, as illustrated in figure 6, 3DSMD’s values are

very close to the actual measurements for the

majority of the day’s duration. There is a very small

discrepancy during ten to one o’clock between

3DSMD and the actual measurements, but this is in

the range of 50lux at its peak and it is thus a

negligible amount to take into consideration.

For applications that require long term analysis

of light levels as for example a study of light levels

for Product Integrated PhotoVoltaics (PIPV) at a

particular place and for a given long time interval

such as a whole day, the approach adopted by this

study derives to qualitative results. In other words,

the requirements of light level analysis for PIPV

applications can be substituted by the virtual tool

offered by 3DSMD and ExposureTM. However, the

complexity of this tool added by the compound

procedures of rendering and analysis are an obstacle

to users or scientists who wish to employ a virtual

tool in their projects. That is one of the essential

aims of the project to which this study is part of.

Utilizing the design and development of a Graphical

User Interface (GUI) we are trying to solve this

aforementioned issue and semi-automating and

simplifying the procedures of virtual lighting

analysis for outdoor applications of PIPV. The GUI

will offer the end user the capability to synthesize

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and modify in few simple steps their landscape and

weather conditions and furthermore to analyze and

infer safe, as proved above, results for further

statistical analysis and planning of the applications.

4.2 Future Work

The project is nearly half way through with an

additional 10 months left. Within that period we aim

to finish the design and development of the proposed

Solar Soldier light simulation platform. Once this is

completed we would be able to run several more

experiments and much more efficiently since the

simulation process will be semi-automated. We

would particularly look to simulate a virtual infantry

soldier with the light sensors placed on the most

effective (and based on scenarios given to us by

DSTL), from a light gathering perspective, parts of

his uniform and kit and generate data across

different terrains (desert, urban), environments

(winter, summer) and mission types (patrol, guard,

etc).

In addition to this we would be running more

outdoor validation studies from non-stationary

positions to see and compare the data generated

when in motion.

Finally it is within our scope to design and

employ the platform simulation tool for commercial

applications as well and we are in the process of

developing commercially-based scenarios in our

system too.

5 CONCLUSIONS

The paper has presented a brief overview of

platform that extends commercial 3D authoring and

light analysis tools to produce a 3D planning and

simulation tool mainly for defence but also for

prospective commercial applications. The unique

and novel feature of this tool is the introduction of

the analysis of technical aspects such as lighting

intensity not only for still scenes but for animated

objects as well.

The paper has focused on a validation study of

the 3DSMD with its light analysis tool for the time

being and as a proof of concept only in an outdoor

still scene scenario. A number of daylight scenarios

have been produced modelled and tested using both

3DSMD as well as actual measurements from a

weather station. This is one of the first amongst a

scarce number of studies with thorough validation

studies focusing on outdoor conditions performed on

3DSMD, producing very encouraging outcomes, as

the data from 3DSMD and the actual PV match

extremely closely under sunny, partially cloudy and

cloudy conditions. Thus, we demonstrated that tools

such as 3DSMD can be employed for simulating

outdoor daylight condition scenario which is among

the basic aims of the project. The tool however is

fairly complex requiring a number of settings to be

configured and requiring that the end-user is highly

experienced with the tool. As part of our proposed

platform we aim to semi-automated and simplify this

process rendering it more accessible as well as

suitable for a number of defence and commercial

scenario applications.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Authors would like to thank EPSRC and DSTL

for the funding of the Solar Soldier project. We

would also like to thank all our project partners from

Glasgow University, Loughborough University,

Strathclyde University, Leeds University and

University of Reading for their valuable contribution

to our work. Also special thanks to Brunel

University and Dr Gary Taylor for kindly providing

access to the SunnyBoy weather and PV data.

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