The U.S. has been building so many solar farms that companies can’t find enough people to install the panels. By 2033, the number of solar installers is expected to increase by 48%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Even if those labor force growth projections pan out, the industry is still likely to face a shortage of experts with the right skills. Making the work grueling — and unappealing — is the fact that a significant fraction of solar farms are in deserts.

“It’s terrible work in remote places,” James Emerick, co-founder and CEO of Cosmic Robotics, said. To give people a hand, Cosmic has developed a robotic assistant that does the heavy lifting on solar job sites.

Robots Take on the Heavy Lifting in Harsh Conditions

Utility-scale solar panels can be enormous, weighing up to 90 pounds. Workers are required to hoist them onto racks several feet off the ground for hours a day. Such exertion in extreme environments can quickly exhaust a worker, or worse.

Those conditions are partly why Emerick and his colleagues started Cosmic. The startup’s robots shoulder some of the job’s physical burden, allowing people to focus on tasks that require more dexterity and intelligence.

Cosmic Robotics Secures Funding for Smart Automation

Cosmic recently raised a $4 million pre-seed round. The round was led by Giant Ventures with participation from HCVC, MaC Ventures, and several angel investors, including Azeem Azhar, Aarthi Ramamurthy, and Nate Williams.

The startup’s robot is currently an eight-wheeled vehicle topped with a robotic arm and a slab of metal containing batteries and computer chips. It tows a small trailer laden with solar panels, and it charges at the construction site depot when the day is over. The arm is equipped with suction cups to lift the solar panels and cameras to sense the environment, while high-accuracy GPS helps the vehicle ensure it’s on the right track.