Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, Brussels, Belgium.
Sensors (Basel). 2012;12(4):4074-90. doi: 10.3390/s120404074. Epub 2012 Mar 27.
Direct sunlight absorption by trace gases can be used to quantify them and investigate atmospheric chemistry. In such experiments, the main optical apparatus is often a grating or a Fourier transform spectrometer. A solar tracker based on motorized rotating mirrors is commonly used to direct the light along the spectrometer axis, correcting for the apparent rotation of the Sun. Calculating the Sun azimuth and altitude for a given time and location can be achieved with high accuracy but different sources of angular offsets appear in practice when positioning the mirrors. A feedback on the motors, using a light position sensor close to the spectrometer, is almost always needed. This paper aims to gather the main geometrical formulas necessary for the use of a widely used kind of solar tracker, based on two 45° mirrors in altazimuthal set-up with a light sensor on the spectrometer, and to illustrate them with a tracker developed by our group for atmospheric research.
痕量气体的直接阳光吸收可用于对其进行定量分析并研究大气化学。在这种实验中，主要的光学仪器通常是光栅或傅里叶变换光谱仪。通常使用基于电动旋转镜的太阳跟踪器将光线沿光谱仪轴引导，以校正太阳的表观旋转。对于给定的时间和地点，可以高精度地计算太阳方位角和高度角，但在实际定位镜子时会出现不同的角度偏移源。几乎总是需要使用接近光谱仪的光位置传感器对电动机进行反馈。本文旨在收集基于两个 45° 反射镜的地平坐标系中带有光谱仪上的光传感器的一种广泛使用的太阳跟踪器的主要几何公式，并结合我们小组为大气研究开发的跟踪器对其进行说明。
