Ultra-Low Cost Intelligent Flexible Automation for Custom Solar Cell Arrays

LightLeaf Solar生产用于轮廓表面的定制太阳能电池板，以定制适合娱乐或运动型车以及商用车的组件。该公司正在发展壮大，扩大产量需要培训更多熟练工人，将单个电池组装成一串串(排)电池，然后组装成可以装入轮廓面板的矩形阵列。为了在保持盈利的同时具有价格竞争力，LightLeaf需要实施可扩展的自动化或半自动组装系统。现有生产大量相同电池板的全自动化系统，但需要大量的资本投资，而且没有生产定制电池板的灵活性。使用传统的电子装配自动化元件来构建快速和专用的柔性自动化系统非常昂贵，这使得一家小公司很难在没有巨额资本投资的财务风险的情况下实现增量增长。这项研究旨在确定是否可以使用超低成本的智能自动化来高效可靠地生产用于生产轮廓太阳能电池板的多电池阵列。如果这种超低成本的智能灵活自动化能够获得所需的可靠性和准确性，则可以通过并行运行多个系统来进行扩展以增加吞吐量，这也将使整个系统更可靠，因为没有单点故障。该项目与萨斯喀彻温省理工学院的添加剂制造和原型研究(RAMP)设施一起，将检验超低成本智能柔性自动化的可行性、准确性和可靠性。

LightLeaf Solar produces custom solar arrays for contoured surfaces, to custom fit recreation or sport vehicles, and commercial vehicles. The company is growing, and scaling production volume requires training more skilled workers to assemble individual cells into strings (rows) of cells, and then into rectangular arrays that can be fit into contoured panels. In order to be price competitive while maintaining profitability, LightLeaf needs to implement a scalable automated or semi-automated assembly system. Fully automated systems to produce large quantities of identical panels exist, but require extensive capital investment, and don't have the flexibility to produce custom panels. Using traditional electronic assembly automation components to build a fast and dedicated flexible automation systems is very expensive, making it difficult for a small company to grow incrementally without the financial risk of a large capital investment. This research is to determine if ultra-low cost intelligent automation can be used to perform efficient and reliable production of multi-cell arrays for producing contoured solar panels. If the reliability and accuracy required can be obtained with this ultra-low cost intelligent flexible automation, it can be scaled to increase throughput by running multiple systems in parallel, which will also make the overall system more reliable because there is no single point of failure. The project with Saskatchewan Polytechnic's Research in Additive Manufacturing and Prototyping (RAMP) facility will examine the feasibility, accuracy and reliability of ultra-low cost intelligent flexible automation.