Renewable energy, particularly solar energy, is vital in addressing current energy demands by providing a clean and sustainable alternative to traditional sources. This work focuses on enhancing the distributed collector system (DCS), a solar energy technology that uses parabolic mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto an absorber pipe. High-temperature thermal oil flows through the pipe, utilizing heat for electricity generation or industrial use. This paper enhances the mathematical model of DCS by incorporating spatio-temporal variations in solar irradiance, mirror optical efficiency, and time delay between input irradiance and output fluid temperature. Advanced estimation techniques, the modulating function method (MFM), and the Gauss-Newton method (GNM), are applied to estimate unknown parameters, improving the accuracy and robustness of solar thermal modeling.
Citation: Shumokh AlJedani, Sharefa Asiri. Estimation of time delay and mirror efficiency in distributed collector systems[J]. AIMS Mathematics, 2026, 11(10): 33161-33182. doi: 10.3934/math.20261299
Renewable energy, particularly solar energy, is vital in addressing current energy demands by providing a clean and sustainable alternative to traditional sources. This work focuses on enhancing the distributed collector system (DCS), a solar energy technology that uses parabolic mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto an absorber pipe. High-temperature thermal oil flows through the pipe, utilizing heat for electricity generation or industrial use. This paper enhances the mathematical model of DCS by incorporating spatio-temporal variations in solar irradiance, mirror optical efficiency, and time delay between input irradiance and output fluid temperature. Advanced estimation techniques, the modulating function method (MFM), and the Gauss-Newton method (GNM), are applied to estimate unknown parameters, improving the accuracy and robustness of solar thermal modeling.
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