Applicability of Wearable Smart Glass for Solar Power Plant Operation and Maintenance

Wearable Devices and their relevant intelligent and integrated computing techniques are presently being discovered to promote extensive claims in many areas. Smart Glass is one such wearable device which attracted many sectors since its official launch as Google Glass in 2014. Currently, no resource exists in the literature that supports the use of Smart Glass for the solar industry. For the first time, this article seeks to expand the Smart Glass applications into the solar power industry especially for addressing the solar power plant operation and maintenance issues. Applicability and scope for possible operations were explored by studying the technology and integrated computing techniques. Various sensors were embedded in smart glass, and they are a camera, microphone, global navigation system (GPS), magnetometer, light sensor, and a tangible interface. These embedded sensors can do works that are most important in monitoring few relevant parameters and addressing the challenges in solar power plant and its system components. Few computing technologies which could be integrated with the smart glass specifically in the view of solar were proposed. The theoretical study was carried out in monitoring the feasibilities of capturing images of the photovoltaic (PV) module for addressing dust and temperature problems, identifying the location of the power plant, noise monitoring of the system components, detection of power cables using magnetometers, tracking of visually enriched images under light conditions etc. Also, with the help of tangible sensors, the operator can use and interact with any digital interface available for displaying the monitor parameters. Hence, it is felt that the smart glass could be a great assent for solar power plant operation and maintenance.