2019 IEEE International Conference on Automatic Control and Intelligent Systems (I2CACIS 2019), 29 June 2019, Selangor, Malaysia

Study on Solar Panel Cleaning Robot

Nurhasliza Hashim1, M. N. Mohammed1, Rubendren A/L Selvarajan1, Salah Al-Zubaidi2, Samaher Mohammed3
1Department of Engineering & Technology,
Faculty of Information Sciences and Engineering
Management & Science University
Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
2Department of Automated Manufacturing Engineering,
Al-Khawarizmi college of Engineering,
University of Baghdad,
Baghdad 10071, Iraq.

3Department of Bio-Chemical Engineering,

Al-Khawarizmi College of Engineering,
University of Baghdad,
Baghdad 10071, Iraq

Abstract—Solar energy, being a noteworthy PV panels. The ability of glass cover of the solar system
wellspring of sustainable power source, is significant in to break through the sunlight radiation across the collector
satisfying future energy need. To ensure efficient surface would determine the efficiency of solar systems.
operation of photovoltaic panels, it is fundamental that the The solar system utilizes solar cell to generate electricity
system presents proper cleaning operation to all
by converting sun energy radiation [5-6]. The system
obstructed materials that may impede the solar light-based
radiation. The amassing of dirt or particles like residue, involves four components, namely: panels, battery, charge
water, sand and greenery on the outer surface of the solar- controller unit and load. Regularly fixed on rooftops and
based photovoltaic panel deter or divert light vitality wired by an inverter into a building, solar PV board
from achieving the solar oriented cells. This is a changes over the direct current generated by solar cells
noteworthy issue since the light obstruction materials into electric current. The deposition and accumulation of
play as resistance that diminishes the performance dirt and residue particles called as soiling highly degrades
of solar photovoltaic. The target of this study is to the energy production [7-8]. Residue deposition and
delineate innovation of robotics technology for cleaning dirtying of the board glass is one of the serious issues in
photovoltaic boards. The proposed strategy screens
the quickly extending solar powered vitality advertise
the power generation and cleans the photovoltaic surface
when required progressively on mobile app. The particularly in situations that experience the ill effects of
enhancements accomplished by the unique structure and residue, airborne particles and moistness which results in
the created model confirmed the common sense of the changes in board's electrical qualities. The amassing of
proposed design. residue particles break down the performance of solar
powered cells and results in measurable misfortunes in
Keywords: Self-Cleaning, IoT. Dust Detection, the produced power because of the sun irradiance
Mobile Robot, dispersing consequences for the surface of the solar board
[9-11].
I. INTRODUCTION The efficiency of solar based panels subsidence
radically when a little segment is obstructed by fallen
The power generated by using conventional methods is trash or a film of residue and precipitation is found to
a costly process and has a harmful effect on the have practically no cleaning impact. Cleaning of solar-
environment that steer the attention towards utilizing and based boards after the installing on the top of a building
developing the renewable and sustainable energy sources is troublesome as residue particles do not enable the sun-
[1-4]. The most common renewable energy is solar- oriented radiations to enter in the board appropriately
based energy. It has gotten a huge attention from causing a decrease in conversation productivity of the
researchers and industrial sectors for several reasons like: board and prompting expanded charging time of the
inconstancy of crude oil prices, awareness of batteries.
environment friendly power sources, backing of local
government by creating rules and policies for supporting
renewable energy sector, low prices of

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2019 IEEE International Conference on Automatic Control and Intelligent Systems (I2CACIS 2019), 29 June 2019, Selangor, Malaysia

Cleaning with a brush and water is the most common and

traditional method. Automated cleaning by using robotics
has likewise been put to handy use. Be that as it may,
manual cleaning is hard in the cruel desert conditions,
water and its transportation to the destinations where the
power plants are settled are expensive, and there is
uncertainty in future worker wages[12-14]. The
electrostatic travelling wave is utilizing as other cleaning
system that is proposed by Masuda et al. [16] and it is still
under development. It is automated cleaning process and
require neither consumables nor mechanical movable
components and has incredibly low power utilization. The
current techniques for cleaning surfaces are costly,
interruptive, wasteful, and possibly harming the surfaces
of collectors. But the automated cleaning system maintains
the solar collector clean along the working time to ensure
maximum reflectiveness and generated power. The aim of
this investigation is to design and develop an automated
Cleaning system for a solar - based collector to minimize
and eliminate the effect of dirts and soiling the
performance of solar systems. The developed system will Figure 1: Block diagram
be able to monitor the power production and clean the PV
surface as soon as required in real time using mobile app.
TABLE 1:
HARDWARE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROJECT
II. MATERIALS AND METHODS
Hardware specification Quantity
Fundamentally, robots are designed in such technique
that they lessen human intercession from work escalated Servo motor 5
and unsafe work environment. The cleaning robot for PV Rechargeable battery 1
panel with Android bolstered block diagram consists of Wemos d1 esp8266
1
three elements, namely: input, processor and output as microcontroller
shown in Figure 1. The primary element of the project is Mini ip camera module 1
input mechanism, which includes each of the Android Voltage sensor 1
control switch unit, IP camera, sensors of voltage and Current sensor 1
current. This info information and data later send to the
5v solar panel 3
second element, which is a processor advancement (type
Wemos D1 ESP8266 based microcontroller) that L298h motor driver 1
integrated by using the Arduino IDE. The last element is
the output source consists of DC-motor for controlling
robot movement, media server for sending video from the TABLE 2:
IP camera to the android apps, and Bluetooth module SOFTWARE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROJECT
integrate with android apps to test the level of both Software specification Software name to be utilize
voltage and current. A camera is appended at the forehead
Source code Arduino ide
of the robot to register and show the perspective on the
climates on the representative's screen for powerful Designing and simulation Proteus
perception, identification and speedy investigation. In this Monitoring cleaning robot Blynk app
improvement procedure Hardware prerequisite for the Monitoring ip camera P2p cam viewer app
advancement of the project are appeared Table 1 and 2
The circuit diagram shown below is consisted of the
Arduino-based microcontroller, L289N motor driver,
5V PV panel, and motors as shown in Figure

2. The diagram as well involves three switches to

control the cleaning robot like on/off-bottoms and
motion of the robot. The PV panel is provided with a
rechargeable battery as a power supply.

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2019 IEEE International Conference on Automatic Control and Intelligent Systems (I2CACIS 2019), 29 June 2019, Selangor, Malaysia

According to preliminary collected data and

information during the design stage, appropriate
elements and software are selected. For the hardware
component, the Wemos D1R2 Arduino microcontroller
is chosen as system development panel, which play a
centric and a crucial role in monitoring other elements
function like: motor driver, servomotor, sensor of
voltage and current and cleaning brush. Meanwhile the
software component is Arduino software utilized for
coding and programming of the system. The Android is
linked to microcontroller through Blynk software.

An efficient cleaning technique must be carried out

on demand with minimum requirements. The
developed system includes three major segments as
Figure 2. The Proposed System shown in figure (1). The first one is sensing,
processing the dirt & dust density and delivering SMS
The circuit simulation has been designed to directly notification massage to the operators when necessary.
test the coding for the microcontroller. Close to that The second one is the sensor of current and voltage
the element utilized in this study is furthermore been with Arduino Uno-microcontroller to determine the
simulated to make schematics and electronic prints for online output of the PV panel, and processing the
fabricating printed circuit boards (PCB). The model amassing dust imact on the output energy.
simulation comprised of microcontroller, motor driver
and servo motor which include in the cleaning The third segment is wiper system with windscreen
procedure together with the solar panel simulation to that start with signal from a microcontroller using relay,
charge the robot framework as shown in Figure3. which is ignited once the rated output power reach
50%. It works as an auto cleaner that is fixed on the
solar PV panel. Also, it consists of washing water
sprayer, electrical D.C. power for driving the
windscreen wiper system provided from the solar panel
using D.C. to D.C. step down converter. In this study,
the effects of accumulated dust on the solar collector
surface will be examined by analyzing the obtained
results from sensors and microcontroller in dusty
environment. The light dependent resistance sensor
(LDR) is connected to microcontroller as shown in
figure 1. It is utilized to differentiate between the day
and night. Hence, this cleaning system works
depending on the electrical power of the PV solar panel
in case of dust accumulation.
The Arduino coordinated advancement condition
(IDE) is provided by the Arduino project, which is a
cross-stage application written in Java language. It
incorporates a code manager with many features like
Figure 3: Circuit simulation using . highlighting of syntaxes, automatic indentation brace
matching and gives straightforward a single tick
The prototype robot is further developed as 3D system to order and upload program to the board. The
design. This design has been improved to fulfill some Arduino IDE bolsters C and C++ languages using
features through reducing unnecessary components, unique tenets to sort out the code. The Arduino IDE
difficulties and enhance the robot looks and provides a product library called Wiring from the
effectiveness. Figure 4 shows 3D cleaning robot Wiring venture, which gives numerous normal
design. information and output process. In remote sensing
control, the target is identified to design a user friendly
application and responsive in which all the system
parameters are provided in details. The Blynx software
is adopted to develop the

Figure 4: 3D design of solar panel cleaning robot.

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2019 IEEE International Conference on Automatic Control and Intelligent Systems (I2CACIS 2019), 29 June 2019, Selangor, Malaysia

application. The online output data of voltage and closed, motor reverse its direction and cleaning process
intensity level of dust is shown by the responsive app. is done in backward direction by controlling with robots
using the Wi-Fi module. The cleaning process of PV as shown in Figure 8. Finally, both of the motor and
modules is started by pressing on the push button to brush stop when the switch closed in the third step as the
operate the motor wiper. process is ended. Later on, the battery is charged by the
power supply of the PV panels.
Nowdays, Blynk software is utilized widely for
design application to be used in several electronics
devices and project. It is integrated with IOS and
android devices to monitor and control various
microcontrollers -based project. Furthermore, it is
internet-based and able to do system monitoring
through connecting to the android internet. Its design is
simple, easy to use, and user friendly. The software is
supported by many tutorials that enable the user to
learn more and more about the functionality. In this
study, the blynk app will be installed on android device
to do several tasks like: monitoring and switch control
of robot, displaying values of voltage , current, level of Figure 7: Verified simulation coding
battery charging, and efficiency as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 8: Proteus Circuit Simulation

For real verification, the station over was controlled the

sytem over Arduino by utilizing the control software.
Figure 5: Final design of solar panel cleaning robot
Mobile robot was tested and approved its suitability in
cleaning solar panel where it expressed good mobility
and capability of passing over the PV panel. The cleaning
robot has effectively finished the cleaning operation. The
operation includes the forward and backward motions
along the rail according to program utilizing Arduino. The
cleaning brush likewise effectively turned and clean the
hindrance like residue and dry leaf all through the
procedure. In general the cleaning procedure had a
beneficial testing as appeared in Figure 9.
Figure 6: Blynk apps interface
The function of the IP camera is monitoring the
III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION cleaning operation and conditioning of PV panels. It is
connected to the internet and can display on android and
At the beginning, the feasibility of designed system PC windows systems. It can be used also for video
should be verified by carrying out the robot simulations recording and image capturing during cleaning. All the
as shown in Figure 7. This action as well verifies the extracted data are successfully documented and stored in
reliability of the adopted control strategies that was the file. Generally, the IP camera approved its reliability
clarified above. The circuit simulation demonstrates the during monitoring the cleaning operation as revealed in
electronic devices that are used in the current study by Figure 10.
using software to display the system performance.
Proteus software was used to simulate the system. The
simulation compromise of three steps and there is a
switch to control each step. When the simulation
coding verified, the process starts. Once the switch
closed in the first step, the motor move forward and
brush starts cleaning process. While the second switch

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 2019 IEEE International Conference on Automatic Control and Intelligent Systems (I2CACIS 2019), 29 June 2019, Selangor, Malaysia

comprehensive monitoring and increase the efficiency rate

of the system. Currently, this robot is not for commercial
use and there is future work of development to add more
functions for different applications. With more advances of
technology, more developed and efficient cleaning methods
are taking their way to practical use to reduce the power
losses due to dust accumulation on the panel surface.
Figure 9: Robot start cleaning process
Therefore, the automation of solar power plant will support
and enhance the decision-making of large scale solar fields.

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