Maximo automated photo voltaic panel set up, leveraging the standard and precision of an industrial robotic mounted on a cellular chassis. | Credit score AES
The Robotic Report just lately sat down with Chris Shelton, the SVP and chief product officer at AES, to debate AES’s transition from energy era to wash vitality, specializing in photo voltaic building. AES developed Maximo, a photo voltaic building robotics service, leveraging AI imaginative and prescient, industrial robotics, and a cellular microgrid system.
Maximo, first launched in 2024, autonomously installs photo voltaic panels, with a fleet of 4 robots at present assembling 1 megawatt per day, equal to 1,900 panels. The corporate additionally plans to combine Maximo with EPC corporations and develop an clever planning platform for the robots.
AES is on its fourth era of field-tested robots
AES expects model 4 of Maximo to be out there in Q2 of subsequent 12 months. The answer is centered round an industrial six-axis robotic arm, mounted on high of a cellular platform. A second, smaller industrial arm is mounted on the aspect of the platform, and designed to succeed in underneath the panels to finish the attachment course of. The robots are powered from onboard batteries and leverage imaginative and prescient and lidar sensors to trace the exact areas of the panels, the panel mounts, and the encompassing crew.
The cellular platform just isn’t autonomous on this era of the platform, however is towed by a tractor. The corporate expects to make the platform autonomous in a future era.
The panel set up is delivered as a service in accordance with Shelton, “Maximo is a photo voltaic building robotics service that makes use of the robotics answer we offer; we receives a commission for an put in module. So we’re going to market with the entire answer, not simply the expertise. We predict that’s the proper method for our trade. Maximo serves engineering, procurement, and building corporations that construct photo voltaic farms for AES and others.”
“We’re simply doing the bodily half the place we’re getting it out of the field and inserting it on the torque tube, and attaching it on the underside proper. In order that’s simply extremely repetitive,” Shelton continued, “a crew would set up 250 to 300 of these per day in desert warmth. And people are about 80 kilos every.”
The working surroundings for the Maximo system is harsh. When requested concerning the expertise on the coronary heart of the system, Shelton acknowledged, “We thought AI and robotics had been a great match, and we guess on a number of traits. One of many largest bets was on AI-based imaginative and prescient. We count on to have totally different lighting circumstances and totally different climate. We’ll have totally different module sizes, totally different module producers, and totally different mounting kinds. So we guess on imaginative and prescient having the ability to take care of that. The second ingredient is to make use of confirmed industrial robotics for the meeting course of. The robots are sealed in opposition to the weather and designed to final.”
Photo voltaic will help rising knowledge middle wants
In California, AES is constructing the biggest photo voltaic storage complicated in the US for Amazon. All the energy will go to Amazon datacenters. It’s 1000 megawatts of photo voltaic and 1000 megawatts of batteries. Maximo is constructing about 15% of section two of that. In line with Shelton, the corporate must be accomplished with the set up by the top of December.
