SBIR Phase 2 Award for Guided Robot Assembly of a Solar Collector

High-performance parabolic collectors require that their mirror panels are aligned to better than one millimeter over their spaceframe support structure which is the size of two double-decker buses. Out-of-tolerance mirror positions lead to reflected light missing the receiver that captures the energy. Today, assembling parabolic collectors involves the labor-intensive assembly and use of large alignment jigs. Automation of this critical alignment process has been beyond the state-of-the-art. Under a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Award from the U.S. Department of Energy, Sunvapor demonstrated a novel a method to solve this problem:  Sunvapor’s Virtual Jig™ concept substitutes the jigs, concrete slab, assembly building, and labor with a guided robot on a moveable platform. A robot on a movable platform is blind without large-scale dimensional metrology. Sunvapor is the first company to integrate real-time photogrammetry with an industrial robot.