Design and Implementation of a Solar-Powered Mobile Robot for Transportation Application

Abstract

Renewable energy is currently a great alternative for humans in many applications such as industrial production, heating, and transportation. One of the fastest developing technologies nowadays is electric vehicles, small-size mobile robots powered by renewable energy. This study presented the design, optimization, and implementation of a prototype of a solar-powered mobile robot (SMR) applied for transportation. The SMR was optimized by multi-constraints such as small dimension, small weight, and low power consumption. In the scope of green energy collection, the SMR is capable of fast charging time and high energy storage capability by the use of arrays of supercapacitors which are the current trend in robotics power management. The SMR was powered purely by solar energy and controlled via Wi-Fi protocol using a low-powered consumption IoT solution. The SMR had been tested for carrying a weight of 4.1 kg and traveled a 10-meter path in each testing cycle. Within 15 minutes, the SMR had completed 26 cycles with a total distance of 260 meters and the total transported weight was 103 kilograms which was nearly 50 times larger than the weight of itself. The SMR has shown a high potential to be applied in many fields such as food delivery, package transportation in warehouses, infrastructure buildings, and agriculture.