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Solar Energy, Vol.71, No.3, 155-164, 2001
Non-imaging, focusing heliostat
A non-imaging focusing heliostat for effective use of thermal solar energy is proposed. The heliostat consists of a number of grouped slave mirrors, which are able to move according to a proposed formula to eliminate the first order abet-ration. The master mirror tracks the sun by a proposed rotation-elevation mode to project solar rays together with the rest of slave mirrors into a fixed target. The merit of this design is that it may benefit the use of solar energy in high temperature applications by allowing a single stage collector to replace a conventional double stage structured it may also benefit high concentration applications, e.g., solar powered Stirling engines, solar pumped lasers. etc. The feasibility and a reliability test of the proposed method by a prototype heliostat in the University of Technology. Malaysia is reported.