PDF《研究员姓名：陈泳心 杜美忻》

6 The optimal way to arrange solar panels to collect the maximum solar power is in the usual boring linear arrays, as in Marc Brandsma'

s answer. Ideally, these arrays will track the motion of the sun so that the panels are always exactly perpendicular to light from the sun. More complicated designs such as tree-inspired design by

13 year old Aidan Dwyer can'

t help (See Brian Roemmele'

s answer). Why not? We can make a rigorous argument based on two principles: 1.Symmetry: The only relevant degree of freedom is the orientation of each panel relative to sunlight. Thus when the sun is fixed in the sky, the optimal orientation is with each panel exactly facing it. (This is pretty obvious from geometrical constraints.) 2.Independence: Every solar panel must have an identical optimal orientation(s), because each solar panels collects light independently from the same source and their collected power adds linearly. The only way that there can exist different optimal orientations is if the placement of some panels must overlap, which is clearly not an issue for flat arrays of solar panels. It is a mathematical impossibility for there to be other optimal solutions to the problem of collecting solar energy. This is a problem of geometry, so it'

s no wonder that engineers aren'

t rushing out to reproduce Aidan'

s experimental findings. Note that finding the optimal fixed orientation is not entirely trivial, since the atmosphere will let through different amounts of sunlight depending on the angle relative to the ground and local atmospheric conditions [1]. But to a pretty good approximation, the best fixed orientation is just to put solar panels on south facing slopes in the Northern hemisphere. (There serious methodological issues with Aidan'

s experiment, as detailed in the comments, but there'

s no need to focus on them here.) Why isn'

t the static arrangement of leaves on trees good inspiration for arranging photocells? The short answer is that trees have already grown up out of the shade, so they are typically resource limited by other nutrients besides sunlight. We shouldn'

t expect them to optimize for absorbing solar power since that doesn'

t need to be their top priority. Moreover, a very serious issue for plants is avoiding sunburn, so they have developed extremely sophisticated

7 mechanisms to avoid damage from too much light [2].In addition, there are many complicating biological constraints that influence plant growth. For example, the reason why the Fibonacci sequence appears in branching patterns in trees and many other forms of life is because of universal principles for biological growth [3]:The principal conclusion is that Fibonacci phyllotaxis follows as a mathematical necessity from the combination of an expanding apex and a suitable spacing mechanism for position new leaves. Since artificial solar panels are designed from scratch for the singular purpose of capturing solar energy, these biological constraints are not relevant. It'

s the same reason why we genetically engineer the photosynthetic apparatuses of algae used for making biofuels. Nobody has a better version of solar light harvesting for plants than natural photosynthesis, but we can optimize it for when the constraints have changed. In fact, as Charles Gretton pointed out in the comments on Brian'

s answer, there is a different excellent bio-inspiration for arranging solar panels [4]: leaves and flowers which track the motion of the sun during the day Our opinion: We research the information about types of solar panel, like monocrystalline panel, polycrystalline panel, hybrid panel and all black panel. We think polycrystalline and hybrid panel is better to use, because the cells work better from light at all angles with polycrystalline, These are the most efficient panels available with hybrid panel. We design to use the biggest space that we do, so our solar panel can absorb more light to produce more photosynthesis. This is the arrangement of the solar panel that we found on the internet