Maximo Robotics says its robots have completed more than 300,000 construction tasks under performance-based robotics-as-a-service contracts. In those contracts, customers pay for each task completed. The tasks include placing heavy utility-scale solar modules with millimetre precision.
The numbers
- Crew members working alongside the new Max 4.0 system install at 2.5 times their manual rate per person per shift hour, the company says.
- Electrek reports that earlier version 3.0 crews at Amazon's Bellefield solar complex in Southern California installed up to 24 modules per hour per person, nearly double traditional methods at similar sites.
- Maximo says current projects span six large engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors in California, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, New York, Texas and Washington.
- Maximo says it has a «10x late-stage pipeline» for 2027. According to its headline, that covers an additional 3 million tasks and 1.5 GW of solar at named projects.
How it is built
Max 4.0 has three parts. Cortex is the set of vision and planning models, Form is the robot and tooling family, and IQ is a fleet-performance platform that feeds field data back into training. Electrek notes that the team used NVIDIA AI infrastructure, Omniverse libraries and the Isaac Sim robotics simulator to test updates in simulation before deploying them, and that AWS runs the company's field systems.
«The future of solar construction depends on bringing together the experience of our people and new technology,» said Matt Tetrault, president of Primoris' Renewables business, one of the EPC contractors using the robots. Maximo CEO Chris Shelton said the company now wants to expand deployments and move into nearby construction tasks.