A TCS3200/AS7341 Arduino MEGA-Based System for PV Soiling

Author

Nikolai Tsevtkov, Elena Tolstosheeva and Hristina Petrova


Abstract

With the rapid increase of installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity, especially in countries like Bulgaria, there is a growing need to monitor PV soiling levels to optimize cleaning maintenance for large-scale utility PV parks across multiple locations. While industrial systems like DustIQ track soiling levels using blue-LED and photodetector setups (even at night), educational and open-source alternatives often rely on simpler RGB systems with basic illumination sources, such as the TCS3200 sensor. In this work, we developed an open-source, automated soiling measurement system that integrates both the TCS3200 sensor and an AS7341 spectrometer. The setup is embedded within an Arduino MEGA ecosystem, which features a reference solar panel, an INA219 sensor for estimating solar power generation, a BH1750 sensor for solar intensity recordings, and a DS18B20 sensor for ambient temperature readings. Additionally, a dedicated visualization platform for the TCS3200 and AS7341 data was developed using Processing. The proposed open-source platform serves as a comprehensive educational and research foundation for investigating PV optimization strategies in solar power generation.


Keywords

PV soiling, photovoltaic optimization, AS7341 multi-spectral spectrometer, TCS3200 RGB sensor, Arduino MEGA, Processing visualization, predictive maintenance, solar power generation monitoring.



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References


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