A fleet of five autonomous pick-and-place robots will be used to speed up solar panel installation at two large-scale solar farms in Australia.
Last year the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) introduced its AUD$100m Solar ScaleUp Challenge. The aim was to attract global companies and researchers to propose solutions for how to reduce the cost of large-scale solar farm deployment in Australia.
US-based Luminous Robotics is the first firm to receive AUD$4.9m funding as part of this challenge.
Founded in 2023 to help solve the challenge of building renewable energy infrastructure at speed, Luminous soon launched its first robot called LUMI. This autonomous pick-and-place robot was designed to construct, operate and decommission solar farms of all sizes.
Following an initial test at a solar site in Virginia, LUMI is currently in production on a solar site in New York.
The ARENA project will see the LUMI robots deployed outside of the US for the first time.
A fleet of five will be deployed...