COPILOT-CM

COPILOT-CM brings drones, IoT and advanced communications together to monitor, inspect and operate photovoltaic plants. It is a synergic R&D project of the Comunidad de Madrid, coordinated by the GEISER group of the Universidad de Alcalá with CVAR-UPM, which flies its drones with Aerostack2.

• Funder. Comunidad de Madrid, Proyectos Sinérgicos de I+D 2020
• Reference. Y2020/EMT-6368
• Coordinator. GEISER, Universidad de Alcalá
• Links. Project website

The project

Its full title, in Spanish, is Control, supervisión y operación optimizada de plantas fotovoltaicas mediante integración sinérgica de drones, IoT y tecnologías avanzadas de comunicaciones. Large solar plants have thousands of panels, and finding the faulty ones by hand is slow. COPILOT-CM fits each panel with IoT electronics that report its state, and sends drones to inspect the panels that need a closer look.

Aerostack2 in COPILOT-CM

The inspection drones run Aerostack2 and work together with the IoT network on the panels. The papers below describe the framework and how its missions moved from simulation to real flights.

Publications

• M. Tradacete-Ágreda, C. Santos-Pérez, P. J. Hueros-Barrios, F. J. Rodríguez-Sánchez, R. Pérez-Seguí, J. Melero-Deza and P. Campoy. Framework for Autonomous Inspection of PV Plants using IoT Electronics on each PV Panel and UAV Collaboration. Energy Conversion and Management: X, 100878, 2025.
• R. Perez-Segui, P. Arias-Perez, J. Melero-Deza, M. Fernandez-Cortizas, D. Perez-Saura and P. Campoy. Bridging the Gap between Simulation and Real Autonomous UAV Flights in Industrial Applications. Aerospace, 10(9), 814, 2023.