LUMI is an empathy-first technology solution designed uniquely for the solar industry to scale and mitigate risk
LUMI’s innovation flows from industry need
Every single person on our team works the solar site - funneling the intricacies of the solar industry and customer (and construction staff) empathy into LUMI.
We are not a tech-first company, because we believe being a customer-first company gives us perspective: to really think about and optimize for things the industry truly finds important, allowing innovation to be grounded and flow from a direction of empathy and need.
LUMI is built to truly connect to the labor staff…
“LUMI is more than a robot - it is the aggregation of our time with each and every crew member, of the lessons learned by us moving mods via our own hands, of our team living and breathing the same pain that our tech aims to solve. LUMI’s innovation is derived from a place of empathy, a place at the intersection of human connection and the forefront of technology. And we hope, because of this, LUMI will be embraced, adopted, and truly empower humanity in building our sustainable future.”
— Jay M. Wong (CEO, Luminous)
LUMI is minimally invasive to your processes
No onsite integration, no process alterations, no fundamental change to flow of work required. LUMI is designed to directly slot into how things are done operationally today. Our team can recommend process optimizations to further increase performance and speed after understanding your currently operations - but they are not required. LUMI is designed to perform minimally 2x, up to 10x faster guaranteed, regardless of height and geometry variations (which tend to slow manual labor down).
… is validated for the construction environment
The construction site is a demanding and challenging environment and because of this we’ve built LUMI from the ground up using proven ruggedized hardware - LUMI is the only flexible automation solution that has already been fielded within the wide spectrum of operational envelops consisting of high wind (tornado), rain (and thunderstorms), mud, and terrain discontinuities (e.g. trenches). LUMI makes use of industrial grade steel, aluminum, and carbon fiber materials to satisfies industry environment standard ratings for IP 65/67.
LUMI has operated in the rain, in the mud, and across the wide spectrum of terrain and height requirements the solar site necessitates.
… is flexible and hardware agnostic
Our thesis is to minimize operational constraints, uncertainty, and project risk onsite. So as a result LUMI has been designed to handle any module from smaller (<400 W) mods to large format utility mods (>600 W), the robot’s payload can accommodate the wide spectrum of dimensionality and mass.
The robot is designed to reach from 0 to 13+ ft in the air - meaning LUMI has been optimized to throw mods onto standard 1P single axis trackers, fixed tilt structures, as well as high density EW racking solutions - LUMI is your de facto mod thrower!
LUMI is flexible enough to be used with any mod + racking pairing - slotting into the existing flow of manual work where people were lifting these mods (up to 80-100 lbs).
… prioritizes the safety of your hardware assets
LUMI XR to this day has had zero damages installing mods compared to the industry standard of 0.25-0.5% breakage rate. Interestingly, throwing mods is not only dangerous for humans due to repetitive heavy loads, but also to the solar mods which face atypical impact forces and wind conditions during the install process.
While traditional automation solutions deploy rigid steel or aluminum structures grasping atop the glass, LUMI XR, (1) manipulates and stows mods in a vary particular posture to minimize damage during transport and (2) is equipped with a newly invented flexible carbon fiber + cushioning tech to further reduce panel fractures.
… achieves state of the art accuracy and reliability
LUMI has been out in production with proven technologies achieving first in class results:
mm-level precision grasping and placing of modules
industrial grade multi-camera perception and AI motion control software
ruggedized hardware and reliability to run 10h+ shifts
… is designed to fully navigate the solar field
LUMI is the only construction equipment capable of altering its geometry to both drive underneath all steel structures on the solar field and unfold itself to lift heavy solar panels almost 13 feet in the air onto racking. This maximal flexibility allows the system to traverse the solar field without significant constraints and minimize latencies not related to doing physical work, such as moving modules.
LUMI is an economics enabler
LUMI’s rate for moving mods is consistent across large height variations from 4ft up to about 12ft. It turns out manual install rates degrade significantly as pile height increases beyond human reach, since it adds additional process complexity for people to use ladders or platforms to lift mods.
We believe this is a very powerful enabler, especially when it comes being able to design solar sites exceeding human install limitations, considering tradeoffs to minimize earthwork on topography, and install mods at rate despite the resulting height geometries.
This unique case is an fascinating example of how automation becomes an enabler, rather than a pure cost saver - with the power to enable a site’s economics to come out positive, potentially unlocking the green light on a $100M+ project, by reducing the human-constrained complexities that would otherwise render the project unprofitable from a developer or IPP’s perspective.
Our goal is to ship LUMI to help you succeed!