Design, Development, and Experiment of a Solar Panel Cleaning Robot

This paper presents the design and implementation of a solar panel cleaning robot, which is a tracked wheel mobile robot to move on the solar panel. In order for the robot to stick on the solar panel without sliding down, suction mechanism has been designed and implemented. The suction pad is designed to press the panel by controlling air pressure in the vacuum chamber. Since the robot has to move around on the solar panel, not only pressure control but also position control is required. To change the moving direction, body turning mechanism is employed to change the heading direction since tracked wheels have a difficulty of turning. For the heading angle control, sliding mode control is used while position is controlled by PD control. Experimental studies for the robot to move up and down on the solar panel are conducted to demonstrate the functionality of the robot. © 2021 Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers. All rights reserved.