TITLE:
Optical Retention and Actuator Demand in Dual Axis Solar Furnace Tracking
AUTHORS:
Mahamadou Hamidine, Adamou Boueye Abdou, Alio Mahamadou Adamou
KEYWORDS:
Actuator Demand, Heliostat, Hysteresis Control, Ray Tracing, Solar Furnace
JOURNAL NAME:
Smart Grid and Renewable Energy,
Vol.17 No.10,
October
27,
2026
ABSTRACT: This numerical study quantifies the trade-off between receiver-energy retention and actuator demand when automating a two-reflection solar furnace in Niger. A plane mirror follows the solar-target bisector and feeds a fixed paraboloid with a 0.90 m aperture and 0.20 m sag. Ray tracing resolves receiver interception while a sampled servo represents rate limits, backlash, encoder errors and irradiance holds. Verification combines analytical limits, independent geometric calculations, solar-position benchmarking, resolution checks and reproduction of MATLAB R2024b results in Python. With common Solar Position Algorithm trajectories, hysteretic tracking retains 99.75% of continuous-tracking optical energy on the September reference day; one-minute periodic updates retain 99.62% with greater energized-time demand under the same servo. Across 128 paired uncertain-parameter scenarios, median retention is 99.64% and median energized axis time reduction is 89.0%. The least favorable refined case retains 98.27%, so a sub-1% optical penalty is not guaranteed. Seasonal threshold and combined-defect cases identify further conditions on that compromise. The contribution is a verified quantification of optical retention and actuation for the specified furnace, rather than a new tracking law. Electrical savings remain conditional on assumed active and holding power; torque capacity and useful thermal efficiency are not established. No experimental validation is claimed.