Test facility: artificial sun
The exceptional artificial sun (fig. 6) of the SIJ is an indoor placed sun simulator which can simulate the sun’s position according to the altitude angle and the azimuth angle in different seasons of the year and to any location on earth. This high-precision sun simulator imitates the sun’s path with an accuracy of < 0.5mrad and creates a beam of parallel light with divergence < 4mrad.
The test facility is composed of a circular ring on which the unit can be rotated 360° degrees, and a light source which directs its light to a parabolic disk, which then provide a parallel beam of light. This light unit can be moved along a curved bracket to change its elevation. The artificial sun illuminates targets up to a diameter of 500mm. It is steered by two computer-operated electro motors witch can be
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moved stepwise or continuously in slow or high speed. The exact position for the movement control is detected by separate supplementary position encoders on each axis.
