The Research And Manufacture Of A Solar-panel-cleaning Track Robot

Solar energy is a significant environmental friendly substitute for fossil energy. More and more solar power stations are making contribution. Since the panels are exposed in the outdoor all weather, it always gathers dust on them, which would reduce the power generation efficiency markedly. To produce a cleaning robot which works on the panels would relieve this issue effectively.There have been many kinds of robot agency to refer. In this thesis, the existing robot agencies were introduced and compared. Small ground pressure and easy to implement are features of single track. Combining with the working environment on the panels, single track is selected as the moving mechanism of the cleaning robot.Control system is a key part for achieving automatic cleaning. A stack of board based on PC104 is adopted as the core of the track robot. According to the mission of cleaning, the rated power of the main motors was estimated under a relatively severe assumption. Based on the result of the estimation, a model of servo motor was selected, and to increase the output torque, a model of decelerator was selected. A series of Lithium battery was connected based on the rated voltage of the motor and the estimation of required capacity. Then a charging balance board and several DC step-down modules were matched to the battery. The selected units of control system were then built into a test platform, on which the relationship between motor speed and pulse frequency output of the core board was detected.Take the size of the selected units into consideration, the mechanical body of the cleaning robot was designed with Auto CAD. The body is composed by frame assemblies, bevel gear transmission, rubber track agency etc. It designed a bearing wheel mechanism with buffer springs, and derived the formula which adjusts the spring force. Auto CAD drawings of the mechanical parts were designed, and suitable processing was carried out to make the mechanical components in-kind. Installation locations for cleaning mechanism and sensor system have been prepared on the body. After the assembly, moving performance of the track robot should be verified. Experiments and calculation confirmed that the selected motor and battery meet the driving requirements.Take a MCGS touch screen as the monitoring equipment, and it realized the parameter setting and status monitoring for the robot. Program the core board in VC++, realized the Ethernet communication, and Modbus TCP reply, and so the touch screen could control and monitor the robot.This thesis has completed the function of moving cleaning. The robot can steer necessary angle and climb certain slop. It provides a platform for the research of cleaning strategy and charging control. Also, it has reference value to the research, manufacture and motion control of general single track robot.