Cleaning Mechanisms for Solar Panels of Rovers and Other Extraterrestrial Unmanned Vehicles

Maxwell, Austin; Acosta, Gabriel A.; Ward, Michael G.; Hamm, Adam; Hassanalian, Mostafa

doi:10.2514/6.2019-3452

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…However, many researchers have identified the solar panels' efficiency reduction, due to deposited solid particles on their surfaces which decrease the absorbed solar radiation on which the device depends for generating electricity or heat. Further, efficiency reduc-tion due to dirty surfaces can be as high as 60% if the installation is in dusty or polluted atmosphere and not cleaned frequently [1][2][3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Utilizing Artificial Intelligence and Lotus Effect in an Emerging Intelligent Drone for Persevering Solar Panel Efficiency

Almalki

Albraikan

Soufiene

et al. 2022

Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Solar energy has been receiving increasing attention due to the wide range of functionality it now supports and the promise of reduced environmental pollution. However, there are a few ongoing challenges, one of which relates to regular maintenance, especially for those high roof-mounted solar panels whose efficiency might have been degraded because of dust and dirt particle deposits. This paper is aimed at developing an autonomous drone which is equipped with a camera, a GPS sensor, a transceiver, and a pump conical tank to hold water with lotus effects, for the purpose of maintenance cleaning of solar panels which have been mounted on the roof top of buildings. The proposed system considers the combination of MobileNet and VGG-16 CNN techniques together for object detection and recognition that will enable assessment of solar panels, alongside the lotus effect physical technique that will enable maintenance of the solar panels. This would also put out of danger those human lives who have previously risked carrying out such high installation inspections and maintenance. A pump tank is designed and fabricated using a 3D printer to hold water with the lotus effect and is fitted on the drone. The proposed intelligent drone has been prototyped and deployed on-site at Taif University. The experimental results confirm the ability to detect dust and dirt particle deposits on solar panels while flying autonomously before proceeding to maintain them. The cleaning process with the use of the lotus effect has led to an increase in the power efficiency of the solar panels by approximately 31%, while the accuracy of the MobileNet framework for detecting particle deposits on the solar panels and thereafter making maintenance decisions rose to approximately 99%.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Utilizing Artificial Intelligence and Lotus Effect in an Emerging Intelligent Drone for Persevering Solar Panel Efficiency

Almalki

Albraikan

Soufiene

et al. 2022

Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Control Effectiveness: Metric Development and Application to Resilient Lunar Habitat Design

Jain,

Cilento,

Ulmer

et al. 2024

AIAA Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

System safety engineering in its bare essence involves identifying, assessing, and mitigating, or controlling, hazards. Appropriate safety controls are selected using hazard reduction precedence principles, prior experience, or by assessing their impact on residual risk (together with other factors like cost). We propose a control effectiveness metric as one way to systematically and consistently evaluate potential safety controls individually and thereby facilitate selecting a shortlist of potential controls for subsequent integrated evaluation. The control effectiveness metric considers a safety control’s availability when needed, the probability that its design is adequate in addressing the targeted hazard, the probability that the design will be implemented as intended, and the relationship between the time it takes for the safety control to address its target hazard and the time before the hazard propagates. We demonstrated the use of our metric on a lunar habitat design using a physics-based habitat simulator. High control effectiveness and safety controls result in a habitat with high resilience, while low control effectiveness results in lower resilience.

show abstract

Design a Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle with Dynamic Soaring Capability for Titan Exploration

Pellerito

Olivas

Hassanalian

2020

AIAA Scitech 2020 Forum

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cleaning Mechanisms for Solar Panels of Rovers and Other Extraterrestrial Unmanned Vehicles

Cited by 7 publications

References 12 publications

Utilizing Artificial Intelligence and Lotus Effect in an Emerging Intelligent Drone for Persevering Solar Panel Efficiency

Utilizing Artificial Intelligence and Lotus Effect in an Emerging Intelligent Drone for Persevering Solar Panel Efficiency

Control Effectiveness: Metric Development and Application to Resilient Lunar Habitat Design

Design a Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle with Dynamic Soaring Capability for Titan Exploration

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About