A robot designed by an Israeli start-up can autonomously clean rooftop solar panels that other cleaning robots can’t access, increasing the panels’ electricity generation by as much as 15 per cent. Autonomous robots are widely used to clean large-scale solar arrays on the ground. Many work by sliding along rails to wipe dust, bird…
Enel Green Power, in collaboration with REIWA, a pioneering Sicilian startup in robotic technology solutions, has successfully created SandStorm. This innovative cleaning robot not only offers sustainable solar panel cleaning solutions, but it can also be implemented in large solar parks.
The robot is capable of traveling across the tracker central gap and on to the neighboring table using simple connecting bridges. Miraikikai Inc. developed the Solar Cleaning Robot, an autonomous device moved by three wheels and equipped with two simultaneously working brushes to wipe away the sand deposited on the PVP surface.
The proposed robotic device has been successfully validated by means of laboratory experiments. In desert zones, a continuous cleaning activity of photovoltaic panels in solar plants is required since the deposition of both airborne dust and sand after a storm can reduce their efficiency up to 80%.
The two brushes located at the two ends of the robot along the motion direction enable the PVP array cleaning operation. An on-board electronic control system, whose input signals come from ultrasonic sensors, provides for the real time detection and the regulation of the position and speed rate of the robot.
On the contrary, at the end of the second PVP cleaning path, the robot relocation in the third PVP cleaning path is obtained by acting on the FW brush and travelling a counterclockwise curvilinear trajectory in the FW direction.