A flexible rugged testbed for passive solar collector development

We report the development of a flexible, rugged test bed for the purpose of testing various passive solar light collector configurations. An essential aspect in evaluating the performance of such collectors is to analyze its behavior under various illumination levels and planes of incident light. The test bed consists of a series of white LED assemblies which are digitally controlled using a micro-controller and is mounted on a rugged frame. The intensity levels of the LED can be controlled through a computer to emulate the sun's radiation effectively. © 2011 Copyright SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering.