Electrostatic discharge effect on safe distance determination for 500 kV ac power line's helicopter inspection

Experimental Evaluation of Aerial Manipulation Robot in Contact With 15 kV Power Line: Shielded and Long Reach Configurations

“…However, the proximity of the helicopter to the live line may cause the ESD between the cabin and people due to the effect of the electric field [17], resulting in an uncomfortable feeling for the operator. In order to identify the minimum distance at which the helicopter can be located without ESD occurring, experiments were carried out for a simplified model [16] and in a 500 kV line [17]. Depending on atmospheric conditions, the distance from which the ESD event could occur may vary.…”

“…Ref. [15] analyzes the Corona discharge on a quadrotor within an offshore HVDC wind farm, whereas [16] [17] consider the electrostatic fields produced by a power line on a manned helicopter. Second, the installation of devices like bird flight diverters, electrical spacers, vibration dampers, shown in Figure 1, requires a significant level of dexterity, especially in the helical diverter and in the spacers.…”

“…Unlike the visual inspection operations conducted with manned helicopters [16] [17] and unmanned aerial platforms [14][15][21] [22][23] [24] by flying several meters away from the power lines, the realization of maintenance tasks like the installation of bird flight diverters using aerial manipulation robots as illustrated in Figure 1 involves the physical and electromagnetic interaction with the conductors in a closer range, raising two problems: the accurate positioning of the aerial robot with respect to the power line, and the electrical protection of the onboard electronic components. Regarding the first point, ref.…”

A Measurement Method for the Charging Potential of Conductors in the Vicinity of HVDC Overhead Lines Based on a Non-Contact Electrometer

“…When a ground-insulated conductor is exposed to a space-charge-free electric field, the conductor is induced with the same number of charges of different polarities. In this case, there is a potential difference between the conductor and the Earth [5][6][7][8][9]. In contrast, if the conductor is located in an ion flow field, the charging potential is mainly influenced by the ion current, and the conductor's steady-state potential is determined by the balance of the current flowing from the HVDC line and the voltage across the leakage resistance to the ground [10][11][12][13][14].…”

Safe Local Aerial Manipulation for the Installation of Devices on Power Lines: AERIAL-CORE First Year Results and Designs

“…However, some new challenges arise. First, the electrical interaction between the high voltage power line and the aerial robot, considered a floating conductor [12], should be investigated to avoid possible malfunctions due to electrostatic discharge [13] or magnetic noise. Second, the risk of collision of the aerial robot with the transmission line conductors, especially outdoors, where the wind gusts may be significant, makes convenient the use of long-reach [8] or cable-suspended [14,15] configurations to increase the separation distance between the manipulator and the aerial platform.…”