Novel Heliostat Shape Characterization Methodology Using a Terrestial Laser Scanner

Conceição, Ricardo Filipe Carrão, Eceiza, Maitane Ferreres, Bitterling, Moritz, Milidonis, Kypros, Gonzalez-Aguilar, Jose, Bern, Gregor, Georgiou, Marios C., Barreto, Germilly Reki Morais

ISES Solar World Congress 2025 · Fortaleza, Brazil · 2025-11-03
Published by International Solar Energy Society (ISES)

Abstract

Currently, the most used technique for mirror facet characterization in concentrated solar power technologies is deflectometry. Although, it needs to be performed during night-time and the target size in which the fringed pattern is exposed might be considerable. Due to these limitations, new facet characterization techniques need to be developed. Terrestrial laser scanning using a LiDAR scanner was developed and tested in this work. The possibility of acquiring 3D point clouds containing millions of data points regarding the heliostat facet allows to have a flexible and fast technique for shape assessment. Results were compared with previous deflectometry performed at the same heliostats, showing a relative error on the focal length up to 5%. Additionally, the root mean square error of the corresponding slope error matrices was calculated, with values between ranging between 1.03 and 1.79 mrads.

Keywords

CSP, Heliostat Characterization, Slope error, LIDAR.

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