POLIBOT – POwer Lines Inspection RoBOT

Abstract

Purpose Several studies have aimed to develop robotic systems which move in transmission lines. Until this moment, all of them have a high weight and cost associated with the equipment and reduced battery autonomy time. In this context, this paper aims to propose the POLIBOT (POwer Lines Inspection roBOT) with low cost and weight, enabling the movement over the lines and an easier installation and remove. Design/methodology/approach The designed robot uses the Profiles Manufacturing Methodology (PMM). The construction of the robot mechanical structure uses modularized aluminum parts built through square profiles. Thus, it’s possible a drastic reduction in production time as well as cost reduction and weight when comparing this method with other manufacturing processes like foundry, for example. For hardware and software systems, the use of free and open source software causes a significant reduction in cost and project execution time. The benefits of using open source systems are immeasurable, both from academic and industrial applications. Findings The POLIBOT platform is one solution to the problem of inspection in power lines. With this robot, more lines are maintained with lower time. In its constructive aspect, the robotic mechanism is designed using principles of bioengineering. The use of this principle was successful, considering that obstacle transposition is performed with stability and low energy consumption. Research limitations/implications The suggestion for future researches is to replace the battery for solar energy and construction in polymeric material to avoid high magnetic fields. Practical implications The commercial application is evident because manual inspections are inefficient, very expensive and dangerous. Thus, it is growing the number of researches that develop mechatronics systems for this kind of inspection. Social implications The impact is the reduction of accidents because the present procedure requires precision of movements, where the pilot and electrical technician are close to high electrical and magnetic fields. In addition, for some tasks, the worker has to walk on the line to reach some important points. Thus, those tasks involve high risk of death. Originality/value The PMM methodology represents an innovation to the state of the art because others robotic mechanisms proposed for inspection tasks present total structure mass between 50 and 100 kg and POLIBOT has only 9 kg. Other fact is its price for implementation as this robot used the robot operating system (ROS) framework, what dispense the use of licenses. Other important features are that the robot performs the tasks autonomously, which reduces errors introduced by the operator and its low manufacturing cost as compared with other projects.

Investigation of Aerodynamic Stability of a Lightweight Dual‐Arm Power Transmission Line Inspection Robot under the Influence of Wind

“…To simulate the responses, some assumption can be made for each joint variable, i.e., velocities and accelerations can be set to unity [19]. is means that the robot moves at a linear acceleration of 1 m/s 2 and angular acceleration of 1 rad/s 2 .…”

“…Moreover, the external forces Q i of the Lagrangian dynamics of equation (1) comprises the actuator force f r , the wind force f w , and the sinusoidal force f s that cause the flexible line to oscillate along y-axis when the robot moves along the line. us, the complete dynamics of the robot under the influence of wind can be calculated by solving equation (1) using equations (17) and (18) as expressed in equation (19) to equation (21). It can be seen that the final dynamics of equations (20) and (21) are for the angular accelerations of the robot trunk.…”

“…To study the dynamic response of the system derived in equation (19) to equation (21), the robot was controlled at the speed of 10 m/min, and the flexibility of the line f s was measured experimentally to have a maximum amplitude of 3 cm at 2 rad/sec. In addition to this, the parameters of Table 2 were used for the simulations.…”

“…As the main objective of this work is to design an efficient PTLIR, an aluminum 6061 alloy was used to manufacture the robot. e 0.5 m by 0.5 m robot only weighs 7.5 kg including the electronic components; thus, it is much lighter and portable as compared with the existing PTLIRs as tabulated in [19]. All the motors were selected based on the torque analysis of equation 11, where the reliable Robomaster brushless DC motors are selected.…”

“…However, the stability of Expliner is not guaranteed due to its complex maneuvers during automation. Other types of climbing PTLIRs include the line-walking mechanism [15,16], three-arm prototype [17,18], four-arm POLIBOT [19], five-arm structure [20,21], and snake-like mechanism [22,23], among others. However, most of the existing climbing PTLIRs are either heavy or relatively large and can easily be affected by external wind.…”