Gadgetory

solar maybe the hot idea and green energy these days but its efficiency could use a boost enter this Sol bot a new robot that can increase the power output of a single solar panel by up to 40% by some estimates nature is our mother of our inspirations so when the sunflower follows the Sun it does that because it wants to get the maximum amount of sunlight on it so in order to get the maximum energy out of the Sun you have to follow the Sun exactly traditionally these dual access panels are outfitted with costly motors and controllers to do the rotating but now the rugged Sol bot does the heavy lifting just like a physician goes from one patient to the next and monitors the patient and you know gets their chart the sole board goes from one tracker to the next and is able to monitor everything about that tracker and send it back to us here's how the Sol bot works okay so the Sol bot is now approaching and it will pull up and align itself to the station these Pistons will stick out and engage the dog ears to the system the computer on board knows exactly where the Sun is and it can adjust the azimuth and elevation to point right at the Sun and then this all that moves on to the next line just keeps doing the rest of the array it's about five seconds per array - Sol BOTS will work every track and they'll alternate well one is adjusting the panels for 40 minutes the other will charge in a docking station just like this in that 40 minutes one Sol bot can manage up to 200 panels or 300 kilowatts of energy our system is so scalable and it's designed in modules that you can build anything from 300 kilowatts to multiple megawatts from this system this Sol bot is compatible with all types of dual axis solar panels and is designed to withstand extreme temperatures efficient and inexpensive to deploy the engineers at cubics are banking on this bright idea and San Mateo I'm Kara Tsuboi cnet.com for CBS News