Ground based robots for energized transmission line work-technology description, field projects and technical-economical justification of their application

Review and Latest Trends in Mobile Robots Used on Power Transmission Lines

“…Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and airplanes are generally used for visual inspection. The basic design principle for an aerial based robot is to perform visual inspection while flying near the transmission line conductor [2, 7]. The use of such equipment does not allow for maintenance operations, due to the difficulty of installing a robotic arm or mechanism for repairs.…”

“…They present problems related to mobility, controllability and accessibility. They are applied mainly for repairing and/or replacing insulators, components of the structure line and spacers [7,[13][14][15][16] Power transmission lines located in coastal regions experience a strong process of degradation due to the weather. The main problem is the loss of the dielectric strength of the insulators due to the accumulation of salt.…”

“…Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and airplanes are generally used for visual inspections, Fig. 4, the principle of which is to fly close to the transmission line to perform the visual inspection [7, 10]. These systems can use infrared and corona cameras to detect physical damage as well as some internal deterioration of the cable and devices.…”

“…The simplest transmission lines have one conductor per phase hung on insulator strings (3), which can be either suspension (4) or strain insulators. There are also vibration dampers (5), aircraft warning lights (7), and clamps. In bundle power lines, which have more than one conductor per phase (1), there are even more obstacles such as spacers and spacer dampers (2) [8].…”

“…Another method uses unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and airplanes and is highly efficient compared to manual operations but it is more expensive and climate dependant. Thus, since the early 1990s many researchers have proposed mobile robots [1,[3][4][5][6][7], to assist or replace the people working on power transmission lines. The development of these robots is still an open research field.…”