Landing Experiment of a Cleaning Robot on a Slanted Solar Panel by Using a Robot Arm for a Drone (RAD)

In this paper, the landing experiment of the Solar Panel Cleaning Robot(Dr.SPC) by a drone is presented. The robot arm for a drone (RAD) is designed to have two degrees-of-freedom to carry the cleaning mobile robot. The end-effector of the arm is equipped with an electromagnet to hold and release the robot electrically. The end-effector of the robot arm also has two ultrasonic sensors to measure the slanted angle of the panel and a camera to see the panel closely. Measuring the slanted angle of a solar panel is used for the arm to tilt the cleaning robot in parallel with the panel to minimize the contact force measured by a force sensor mounted on the first link. A drone is replaced with an x-y table for the planar motion of the arm. Actual landing experiments of Dr. SPC on the panel are conducted to test the feasibility. © 2021 Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers. All rights reserved.