Montante Solar, which designs, develops, and builds solar projects, orchestrated the field trial with Moog Construction’s semi-autonomous lift-assist vehicle CrewMate at a solar field atop a closed landfill.

The undulating, steep terrain was said to be a good test of the vehicle’s levelling system and ability to climb and maneuver with workers.

For the field trial, CrewMate repeatedly carried pallets – each loaded with up to 31 large PV panels – while closely following workers using the machine’s lift assist to pick up each 83 pound panel and guide it onto the field’s solar module racking.

The semi-autonomous lift-assist vehicle also offers the potential to reduce panel breakage and eliminate injuries, sprains and strains from repeatedly lifting and moving PV panels.

“CrewMate easily integrates with ConOps,” added Dave Grabau, business director for Autonomy and Robotics at Moog Construction.

“CrewMate also keeps humans in the loop versus a fully robotic solution. A robot, with higher levels of autonomy, requires greater precision especially when you have ground instability and racking to contend with; cobots like CrewMate reduce complexity.”

The lift-assist vehicle will engage in a larger pilot project to help construct a solar field at a new location later on this year.