Placement of heliostats on an uneven landscape

We present a new algorithm to compute the placement of heliostats in a solar field which is particularly applicable to uneven landscapes. The new method can be best described as using a potential field, generated by the central tower, to attract heliostats towards it. We initially present the model which is based on breaking down the problem into a computing forbidden regions of heliostat placement given any heliostat and then integrating this with a global parameter which we call the potential field. Three test cases are shown, a flat terrain, a small hill perturbation and finally a completely uneven landscape. It is found that the patterns that evolve are sunflower patterns when heliostats are limited by the physical constraint and a spiral pattern when constrained by the blocking constraint. Other constraints are not implemented in the current publication. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).