It resembles a lunar rover, but don’t let your design visit you. This mechanical arm was designed for the installation of photovoltaic panels.
In Poland, it can be seen that the boom for photovoltaic panels slightly slowed down and although green energy is still very popular, we cannot compare in this respect from the US, where this speeding wagon is constantly accelerating. So many photovoltaic farms are built overseas that people are slowly being missing to work. The industry suffers from a lack of qualified specialists, because hardly anyone wants to work in hot deserts, where these extensive objects are mainly put. And here the works that are to help man in this demanding work appear again.
He looks like a cosmic rover, but his mission is a ground solar
Bureau of Labor Statistics (work statistics) forecasts show that by 2033 the number of solar panel fitters will increase by 48%. Unfortunately, even after adopting the most optimistic scenario, this will not complement the demand for qualified fitters, which is why companies such as Cosmic appear on the market that want to do on these shortages of business.
The COSMIC team specializes in creating robots for physical work, and its latest work is Cosmic-1a, a eight-wheeled vehicle with a robotic arm and a metal platform with components. The vehicle pulls a trailer loaded with solar panels. The arm equipped with a suction cup gently grabs photovoltaic panels and places them on a previously prepared frame – thanks to advanced cameras it can accurately orientate in the field, and thanks to the GPS transmitter follows the set route.
The vehicle itself weighs 1.8 tonnes, and the objects raised by it can reach a mass of up to 70 kg. The arm range is from 1.22 meters to 1.83 meters.
It’s not about taking people away from people
Robotization critics can rightly notice that such a solution displaces a man from another industry, but James Emerick – co -founder and CEO of Cosmic Robotics – answers these doubts.
We perceive this as a strengthening of workforce, not taking a job. This work has its own physical side, so the introduction of new tools actually opens the door for more people who can take it. The COSMIC robot can place a solar panel with an accuracy of a few millimeters from the place where it is to be found. Employees supervise the robot, making sure that everything looks correct before they attach the panel to the frame.
According to COSMIC Robotics estimates, the use of a robot will help clearly accelerate work. The machine is capable of installing twice as many panels than a team consisting only of people – it can install one panel every 30-40 seconds. This made a big enough impression on investors to want to pay you an amount of $ 4 million towards robot development. The company wants to allocate financing for machine production – the plan assumes the creation of several copies by the end of this year and immediate implementation of them to work.
Cosmic Robotics aims at the growing number of data centers that need large energy decks to operate. Their largest clusters are located in California, Arizona or Texas, where high sunlight occurs.
Stock image forms depositphotos
