Imagine if we could do as the plants do and prepare our robots to feed directly off the sun’s energy.
Available almost everywhere at minimum costs, the solar energy is a truly great thing in robotics. With these eight sun-powered projects, you can turn a sunny day off into some money-saving day.
Nano Photovore BEAM robot
This is a simple project that uses the TC54 CMOS voltage detector designed especially for battery-powered applications.
SunSeeker MkI
In this project, the designer uses two 9V solar panels to recharge 6 NiMH AA batteries. The batteries provide power to the sensors, motors and the controllers.
MPPT Vehicle
This robot born from the idea to build an application based on the Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) algorithm. The robot is built to harvest as much energy as it can by moving forwards and backwards. It has a solar panel attached on top of an arm that moves in the direction of the sunlight.
Tonka Front Loader Conversion With Solar Upgrade
In this Instructables project, the user sahirbray shows us how to convert a Tonka truck into a solar powered robot. The designer attached to the mobile platform two solar panels in series able to provide 12 volts.
Solar Powered Lego Mindstorms NXT Robot
For Lego Mindstorms fans, this solar powered NXT robot demonstrates that we can use the solar energy to supply with power almost any robot. And because we’re needed custom components, there is always someone to build these.
How To Build A Solar Charged RC Electric Lawn Mower
It is hard to believe that you can run for a day an electric lawn mower robot using only solar panels to mow your lawn. In this project, the designer Rober Smith shows us in a series of videos how he build the robot mower and how to supply the robot with energy from two big solar panels attached to the mobile platform.
Robi the third 🙂
This robot claims to navigate autonomous via ultrasound and infrared sensors while a solar panel supply with energy the platform.
SunRover Robot – Solar Power System Ready to Test
SunRover is a mobile robot controlled with a Raspberry Pi board and feature on its sides solar panels to harvest solar energy. The platform is engineered to move around and explore the surrounding area while providing data about the weather, and information from other auxiliary sensor systems.