A Robot System Maintained with Small Scale Distributed Energy Sources

An energy autonomy system is sustained by energy from independent and distributed sources. This paper presents a robot system that obtains energy from renewable energy sources distributed over a large area with limited storage capacity. We constructed a linearized charge model to estimate the required energy node capacity and distribution for the robot to survive. For a robot to obtain energy from an energy source, it must be able to recognize the energy node and able to receive energy reliably. We used wireless power transfer to solve conventional contact charging problems, such as mechanical complexity and unstable contact, and image information was used to recognize the energy nodes and align the transmission coils accurately. A small scale renewable energy source was constructed and a charge experiment was conducted to verify the proposed autonomy system feasibility.