Sunbots aim to slash the cost of solar arrays
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21929304.800-sunbots-aim-to-slash-the-cost-of-solar-arrays.html[font face=Serif][font size=5]Sunbots aim to slash the cost of solar arrays[/font]
16 August 2013 by Hal Hodson
[font size=4]A booming solar industry could use a robotic helping hand if it's to compete with fossil fuels as a global energy provider[/font]
[font size=3]NEXT to the Santa Rita jail in sunny Dublin, California, a robot tends a field of solar panels. It quietly makes its way along a rail underneath them, stopping at each to adjust its tilt to face the sun.
This is SolBot, one of a handful of robots on the leading edge of a movement to use automated construction, operation and maintenance to slash the cost of solar power critical if it is ever to compete with fossil fuels.
Meanwhile, Alion Energy, based in Richmond, California, uses robotics to bring down the cost of building and maintaining solar arrays.
The company uses concrete as the base for its set-up, as well as the guide rail for an automated cleaning robot. Once the base has been laid, a custom-built robot called Rover trundles over it, gluing rows of panels in place. At the end of the row, a human worker loads the robot with the next set of panels, and it crawls to the next concrete baseline. Once the panels are installed, a cleaning robot called Spot keeps them in working order.
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