Autonomous Live-Line Maintenance Robot for a 10 kV Overhead Line

Abstract

Live work is a dangerous and complex operation that endangers the lives of operators. This paper presents an autonomous live-line maintenance robot (ALMR), which is applied to 10 kV overhead lines. The ALMR can complete most of the operations automatically, requiring only a small amount of correction and operation. The paper briefly introduces the overall design of the ALMR. The main part of the paper describes the work carried out to realize automatic operation: (1) Propose a dynamic hierarchical task planning method that can decompose complex operations into a sequence of instructions that the robot can directly execute and can effectively deal with unexpected situations during operation; (2) solve the problem of recognition and positioning of cables under outdoor sunlight interference and complex backgrounds;(3) realize the robot's motion planning in the live-line scene; (4) build a virtual environment to solve the telepresence problem of remote operation. Field experiments show that the ALMR can replace manual operations such as connecting and disconnecting lead-flow lines, and the operating efficiency is close to that of manual operations.

Sky-Worker: a heterogeneous dual-arm robot with dynamic authority assignment for live-line working

“…Current research on fully autonomous robotic operating systems is also beginning to show results. Feng et al (2021) proposed a dynamic hierarchical planning method for task decomposition to achieve autooperation for ALMR. Zhao et al (2022) used the deep learning network you only look once (YOLO)-v4 for lightning arrester precision recognition to assist fast automatic navigation of the robot.…”

“…Based on the UNIVERSAL ROBOTS, Gu et al (2022) designed a single-arm live working robot with specialized tools for a variety of maintenance tasks. Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s dual-arm live working robot ALMR (Feng et al , 2021) compensates for the shortcomings of the single-arm and can automatically perform more dexterous operations, but it has limited load capacity. Especially when equipped with tools, ALMR’s working objects are further limited.…”

Intelligent power distribution live‐line operation robot systems based on stereo camera

“…Hunan Electric Power Company uses force-position hybrid control when the robot arm touches the object, remotely completing wire stripping, wiring, and wire trimming operations [14]. Shanghai Jiao Tong University installed the robot's visual recognition and positioning system on a 6-DOF manipulator, which realised the identification and positioning of cables under outdoor conditions, but it did not satisfy the requirements of fine operations [15]. Shandong University used the LS-YOLOv4 method to detect targets in the distribution network scene and calculate the grasping attitude [16].…”

6-DOF Bilateral Teleoperation Hybrid Control System for Power Distribution Live-Line Operation Robot

“…Live-line work tasks [21,22] can be divided into two categories according to the type of contact used when a robot works. One type is flexible contact between a tool and an object, such as the contact between a wire connection tool and a wire during power line connection work, which can be accomplished via visual recognition, positioning, and robot planning [23]. The other type is rigid contact, such as the process of assembling a peg hole between the copper connection terminal of a wire and a lightning arrester during arrester installation, a process that can only be completed under vision /force fusion [22].…”