research

SOLAR powered robots: resource constrained interactivity - 2018

Thesis advisor Christopher Leung

Since their introduction in the last 60 years, solar panels represented not only an opportunity to use renewable resources for general utility, but also a powerful tool to feed solar powered robots and artworks. Thanks to a direct conversion from solar radiation to electrical energy, solar powered robots become more autonomous and less dependent on more restricted sources of energy. Robots do not need to be stationary anymore, but they have the possibility to travel and migrate, trying to reach a condition of internal autopoiesis and a niche in its surrounding habitat.

In a scenario of a self-sufficient robot, we may ask to ourselves how it can find a compromise between the available stored energy and the one the robot spends to move finding the way to prolong its activity.  Answers can be found by analysing the physical hardware components, understand the balance, the inputs and the outputs and propose software strategies for a behaviour focused on the energy conservation.

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