Optical characterization of heliostats using multiple 3D geometry characterization sensors

A collaboration between the Energy Environment and Water (EEWRC) and Science and Technology in Archaeology (STARC) Research Centers of The Cyprus Institute has been established with the aim of combining techniques, methodologies, and software analysis from the respective fields to characterize the optical surface of a heliostat. Both imaging and range-based approaches were used to obtain the raw data, which was subsequently refined to a corresponding 3D point cloud and further processed to characterize the real surface geometry of the heliostat. The heliostats was surveyed with both techniques in two positions, with the point clouds being placed online for comparison. After suitable post-processing, the resulting surface was imported into a ray-tracing software. The favorable agreement found between the visual images of solar flux reflected by the heliostat on a flat target at different sun positions and the equivalent distributions obtained from the ray-tracing model of the measured surface demonstrates that the proposed techniques to obtain the geometrical raw data and the post-processing methodologies used are suitable for the optical characterization of heliostats.