Design and Construction of a Water-Free Cleaning Robot for Solar Panels with the Ability to Adjust the Height

Subject Areas : Renewable energy

Mohammadreza Miveh ¹ , Amirhossein Ahmadi ² , Mojtaba Pishvaei ³

1 - Department of Electrical Engineering- Tafresh University, Tafresh, Iran
2 - Department of Electrical Engineering- Tafresh University, Tafresh, Iran
3 - Department of Electrical Engineering- Tafresh University, Tafresh, Iran

Received: 2021-07-30 Accepted : 2021-10-09 Published : 2021-09-23

Keywords: Efficiency, Renewable Energy, solar panels, Cleaning Robot,

Abstract :

Today, with the depletion of fossil fuels, the trend towards using renewable energies has increased. Among the various types of renewable energy resources, solar systems received more attention due to technical, environmental and economic reasons. However, the efficiency of solar panels is not high due to several reasons. In addition to using high-efficiency control equipment such as maximum power point tracking (MPPT) methods, cleaning the surface of solar panels is one of the best and easiest ways to improve their efficiency and performance. In this paper, to increase the efficiency of solar panels, a robot for cleaning solar panels with the ability to adjust the height with the help of tank wheel technology has been developed. Moreover, due to water shortages in the country, the design of this robot has been done without the use of water. Considering that the designed robot has a telecommunication system with remote control capability, the speed of cleaning is very high and there is no need for the operator. The used software in the robot provides proper scheduling for the cleaning of solar panels. In addition to the aforementioned advantages, the proposed robot has a much lower price than foreign products. The performance of this robot on the five kW solar power plant of Tafresh University has been evaluated. Increasing the efficiency of the power plant, more revenue from the sale of energy to the grid and significant savings in water consumption are the main advantages of this intelligent robot.

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