Spatial irradiance estimation in a thermosolar power plant by a mobile robot sensor network

•The algorithm obtains a spatially DNI estimation with a multi-robot sensor network.•The algorithm approaches both the generation of tasks and the estimation of DNI.•The clouds and exploring unknown areas are needed to generate new tasks.•The framework is modular and additional information sources can be considered. An algorithm for mapping Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI) in thermosolar power plants using a Mobile Robotic Sensor Network (RSN) is presented. The algorithm selects measurement spots and allocates the RSN accordingly to carry out the dynamic estimation of DNI. A generic thermosolar power plant with a fleet of vehicles is used as a simulated case study to assess the performance of the algorithm. The results show that the proposed method allows us to obtain a spatial estimation of the DNI that could improve the performance of the plant, and that outperforms estimations based on a single pyrheliometer.