PV Large Utility Visual Inspection via Unmanned Vehicles

The robotics for Inspection and Maintenance (I&M) was introduced decades ago. Increasing their technologies, they were more and more used in more complex scenarios, thanks also to the legged robots able to move on uneven terrain as well as drones always more autonomous. Energy production plants were investigated in this paper, to evaluate how is the suitability for autonomous I&M;; that’s matter of facts, that, until now, robotic based inspection of photovoltaic systems was considered only as one of the possible I&M strategies feasible for this category of energy systems. In this work, the advantages of autonomous inspection systems for large photovoltaic systems are discussed by connecting them to the specific characteristics of a large photovoltaic utility plant. The objective is to highlight that, based on a large investigation, in the case of photovoltaic energy, robotic inspection is a necessity rather than an option.