Solar Panel Cleaning Robot

A Solar Power Plant covering an area of 440 sq.m, producing 60KWp output was set up by Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) in Chennai. The plant consist of a number of 2m x 1m Solar panels arranged in matrices of 6x6. The power output is proportional to the amount of incident solar rays/sunlight. The amount and intensity of sunlight depend on several factors. The most important being the angle of inclination of the panels. Thus the panels in this plant are inclined at an angle of 13 degree to the horizontal in order to achieve maximum efficiency.

The intensity of the solar rays falling on the panel is greatly affected by the layer of dust that accumulates over the panels frequently. Hence in order to maintain a constant output, the panels are cleaned regularly, enabling more sunlight to penetrate through the panels. TNEB uses water sprinklers, installed in the corners of the panel. But still this cleaning method hasn't fetched good result due to the poor reachability and incapability to clean dried stains (due to birds' menace).

A robot was designed as a better solution for cleaning the solar panels. The design was done based on the functionalities expected (like dusting, mopping etc) and taking into account the various constraints (like weight, grip on wet glass etc).

The prototype of the robot was built using plywood, PVC pipe, geared motors, rubber layered wheels and solenoid valve. The control of the robot was made wireless using RF transmitter(remote) and receiver. An on-board microcontroller was programmed with different cleaning actions for different combinations of buttons on the remote.