Beneath the olive groves of the Agricultural University of Athens (AUA), one of Europe’s most ambitious robotics and AI initiatives for renewable energy gathered last week for a crucial milestone: the 5th General Assembly of the TALOS project. Consortium partners, technology developers, and stakeholders from across Europe convened for two intensive days of technical reviews, workshops, and strategic planning, a gathering that marked a decisive inflection point as the project enters its final stretch before its September 2026 conclusion.
The assembly’s agenda was designed to cover the full breadth of the project’s activities. Day one opened with detailed presentations from the work packages dedicated to AI tooling (WP2) and multi-purpose coordinated robotics development, led respectively by ISOTROL and a cluster of partners including INESC TEC, DTA, and SCL. The afternoon shifted gears with two participatory workshops: one focused on exploitation pathways, asking partners to map their technologies’ readiness for market and identify joint commercialisation opportunities; the second dedicated to policy making, convening consortium members to examine the regulatory landscape surrounding the project’s three pilot scenarios.
Day two brought updates on the demonstration campaigns, led by EDP, followed by presentations on impact and replication strategies (CERTH), communication and exploitation activities (ICONS and Funding Box), and project coordination. The assembly closed with a visit to the AUA campus, providing an opportunity to see first-hand the agricultural and technological research environment that serves as the intellectual backdrop for the agrivoltaic strand of TALOS.
Twelve Innovators, Three Pilots, One Platform
Perhaps the most compelling segment of the assembly came from the Open Calls, where Yolanda Moreno of Funding Box and the EDP team presented the outcomes.
The call attracted applications from more than thirty countries, with twelve companies ultimately selected and integrated into the project’s support programme. The breadth of innovation on display was remarkable. At Villacastín (Spain), the land-based PV pilot, BVLOS-RAISI validated autonomous Beyond Visual Line-of-Sight drone inspections at speeds that could enable coverage of large-scale installations in a fraction of the time required by conventional means. EL-INSPECT, meanwhile, demonstrated autonomous night-time electroluminescence inspections by UAV, a method capable of detecting hidden module defects that are invisible to standard daytime assessments, now made faster and more scalable through automated flight planning and AI-powered fault classification.
Also at Villacastín, ARAVI developed a dual-purpose autonomous ground vehicle capable of both mowing and rear-face backsheet inspections of PV panels, a gap in current O&M practice that can expose plants to safety risks and energy losses. ATHINA, deploying AI-based image recognition software through a network of fixed cameras, demonstrated an unexpected additional use case alongside biodiversity monitoring: early-stage fire detection.
At the Alqueva floating PV installation in Portugal, CLARO-XR delivered a collaborative augmented and virtual reality environment enabling real-time coordination between on-site technicians and remote supervisors, with direct overlay of inverter and string data onto physical components. The TERRA project contributed a UGV-based telepresence platform using voice-commanded navigation and SCADA data visualisation.
The agrivoltaic site at Randwijk in the Netherlands provided the test bed for some of the project’s most forward-looking innovations. FRUITURE demonstrated an electro-adhesive gripper mounted on a robotic arm capable of harvesting pears with high precision. A system that targets a key capability gap on the path to fully autonomous APV management. PVGROW and SUNNY each tackled microclimate monitoring and AI-based recommendations for crop management, with complementary approaches to improving agricultural decision-making under PV canopies.
The Road to September
With the demonstration campaigns in full swing across three countries and the final phase of the project now firmly underway, the Athens assembly confirmed that TALOS is on a strong trajectory towards its September 2026 conclusion. The remaining months will see the full integration of robotic and AI solutions at all three pilot sites, the completion of impact assessment and business case analyses, and the progressive consolidation of exploitation pathways, both individual and joint, for the technologies developed by consortium partners and Open Call beneficiaries alike.
A key moment will be the external policy stakeholder workshop planned for June 2026, which will bring together sister projects, industry associations, and policymakers to validate the recommendations emerging from the pilots and co-author a joint policy brief. Together with the final exploitation plan and a comprehensive impact report, this will form the lasting legacy of a project that has pushed the boundaries of what autonomous systems can do in real, operating solar environments.
The ambition that brought this consortium together in Athens remains undimmed: to build a credible, evidence-based case that robotics and AI are ready to play a central role in the operation of Europe’s fast-growing solar infrastructure. Furthermore, to leave behind a foundation, in the form of proven technologies, trained partners, and grounded policy guidance, that will continue to bear fruit long after the project concludes.
