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About
Solar panel installations experience efficiency losses due to dust accumulation, especially in large farms located in dry or desert areas. Manual cleaning is labor-intensive, water-consuming, and economically inefficient for continuous maintenance.
The goal was to design an autonomous robot capable of cleaning solar panels efficiently while operating safely on inclined surfaces. The system needed to autonomously navigate over panel rows, perform complete cleaning cycles, and return to a docking station for automatic battery charging — ensuring continuous and unattended operation.
I developed the robot’s navigation and software layers, including embedded motor and sensor drivers, motion control, and a state machine for autonomous operation and docking. The final system achieved stable and precise navigation across panel surfaces, reliable cleaning cycle management, and fully autonomous recharging. This resulted in an energy-efficient solution for maintaining solar farm performance.