Press Release
Widgtech Ashman Photovoltaic Cleaning Car by Hao Huang and Xu Chen Is Granted the Silver A' Design Award in Robotics, Automaton and Automation Design
Hao Huang and Xu Chen acknowledged for robotics, automaton and automation design by the international grand jury of the 2022 - 2023 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 20, 2023 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that Widgtech Ashman Photovoltaic Cleaning Car by Hao Huang and Xu Chen, designed for Widgtech, has been granted the Silver A' Design Award in the Robotics, Automaton and Automation Design category. The recognition forms part of the 2022 - 2023 A' Design Award & Competition and was decided through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who scored anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
What the Silver A' Design Award Means
The Silver A' Design Award celebrates top-tier designs that embody excellence and innovation. This award acknowledges creations that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also highly functional, reflecting the designer's deep understanding and skill. Silver A' Design Award recipients are recognized for their contribution to raising industry standards and advancing the practice of design. Their work often incorporates original innovations and elicits a strong emotional response, making a notable impact on the improvement of everyday life.
Regarding Widgtech Ashman Photovoltaic Cleaning Car
Widgtech Ashman is a cleaning vehicle designed for solar photovoltaic panels in large power plants. The vehicle uses a pure electric drive, a tracked chassis and an intelligent pathfinding function. A central water tank holds 200 liters and supports the cleaning of thousands of square meters of panels. The mechanical arm has six degrees of freedom and carries an image recognition module, an atomizing water sprayer and a cleaning head. The image recognition module analyzes each panel and guides the mechanical arm during cleaning. The design reduces manual labor and water use.
About Hao Huang and Xu Chen
As a design studio in China, “SX” stands for Chinese “ShangXiang” which taken from “Yi Chuan”. The name expounds our core opinion: To build significance of daily life through the observation, extraction, abstraction and reorganization of phenomena. sxdesign creates and values languages and ideas of client and user, such as requirements, knowledge, or the attitude of sxdesign itself.
Award Record
This recognition makes Hao Huang and Xu Chen a winner of 13 A' Design Awards. The awards span the editions from 2020 - 2021 to 2022 - 2023 of the A' Design Award & Competition.
About the A' Robotics, Automaton and Automation Design Award
The A' Robotics Design Award is an international robotics design competition recognizing good robotics designs by robotics designers and engineers worldwide. The competition is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to robotics designers, automation engineers, robotics brands and robot manufacturers from all countries. Entries typically include industrial robots, medical robots, agricultural robots, domestic robots, autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots. Awarded robotics designs are published at https://designers.org/design-category/robotics
About A' Design Award & Competition
A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade organized annually since 2008. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The A' Design Award has a philanthropic mission to advance society through good design by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Entries are peer reviewed and anonymously evaluated by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. The A' Design Prize granted to eligible laureates includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, the upload of a work and the preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. Further information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://designers.org/149894
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/149894
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!149894
- Laureate Profile: https://designers.org/d/304255
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Widgtech Ashman Photovoltaic Cleaning Car
- Function
- Photovoltaic Cleaning Car
- Category
- Robotics, Automaton and Automation Design
- Discipline
- Service Design
- Industry
- Manufacturing and Innovation
- Colors
- Dark Slate Gray, Black, Dim Gray, Lavender and Gray
- Images
- 5
- Client
- Widgtech
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Hao Huang and Xu Chen
- Country
- China
- Recognition
- Silver A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2022 - 2023
- Design ID
- #149894
Credits
- Team
- Hao Huang, Xu Chen, Qian Hao, Fangbo Wu, Zhihan Yuan, Yating Zhou, Ge Song, Junyi Wei, Rong Zhang
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- Widgtech Ashman has pure electric drive and crawler chassis, with intelligent pathfinding function. The central water tank has 200 liters capacity, supporting cleaning of thousands of square meters of photovoltaic panels. The mechanical arm has six degrees of freedom and is equipped with image recognition module, atomizing water sprayer and cleaning tow head. The image recognition module analyzes the photovoltaic panel and controls the mechanical arm to do the cleaning work.
- Inspiration
- Solar energy industry has made great contributions to energy conservation, emission reduction and environmental protection as green energy. In northern region photovoltaic bases, cleaning work has been a great challenge due to environment conditions and park size. Widgtech Ashman adopted intelligent tracking and image recognition technology for unmanned cleaning work, saving manpower, controlling water usage and ensuring cleaning efficiency and effect.
- Research
- Photovoltaic panels for photovoltaic power generation need regular cleaning to avoid reduced power generation efficiency or burning due to hot spot effect. In the south, the scale is small and the water environment is easy to clean. In the north, however, large scale, lack of water and wind and sand dust increase labor and material costs and make traditional spraying very wasteful of water. Thus, power-driven intelligent equipment for unmanned precise operation has great advantages.
- Challenge
- The intelligent control of the cleaning vehicle is the biggest challenge, especially the intelligent recognition of the surface area of the photovoltaic panel. It is a great challenge to make accurate judgment under different light and distance. To solve this problem, we use deep convolution algorithm for a large number of identification learning, and use different sensors for auxiliary recognition to improve the availability of the equipment.
- Realization and Technology
- The body and main arm structure of the cleaning vehicle are made of aluminum alloy by stamping. Two kinds of dark gray matte paint are used for the appearance. The track is made of polyurethane polymer material by injection molding, light weight, wear-resistant and corrosion-resistant.
- Operation and Interaction
- Widgtech Ashman's intelligent photovoltaic cleaning car is mainly used for regular cleaning of solar photovoltaic panels in large photovoltaic power plants, aiming to solve the problem of large-scale solar photovoltaic panel cleaning under conditions such as northern region, complex terrain, water shortage environment and unmanned environment.
- Project Duration and Location
- The project started in May 2022 and finished in February 2023 in Beijing.
- Specifications
- The body is 1900mm long, 1190mm wide and 750mm high. The effective working radius of the arm (including the trailer part) is about 2500mm, the maximum load is 10kg, and the working power consumption is 400W. The net weight of the chassis is 450kg, the net weight of the arm is 58kg, and the water tank is full load of 200kg.
- Keywords
- Photovoltaic, intelligent equipment, cleaning operation, environmental protection, unmanned, automatic control.
