This paper presents a climbing robot with wheeled locomotion and adhesion through permanent magnets, developed with the intention of being used in the inspection of different types of man-made ferromagnetic structures, such as towers for wind turbines, fuel storage tanks, and ship hulls. In this paper are presented the main considerations thought for its project, as well as several constructive aspects, among which are detailed its mechanical and electrical construction, the implemented control architecture, and the human-machine interface developed for the manual and automatic control of the vehicle while in operation. Although it can be manually controlled, the vehicle is designed to have a semiautonomous behavior, allowing a remote inspection process controlled by a technician, this way reducing the risks associated with the human inspection of tall structures and ATEX places. The distinguishing characteristic of this robot is its dynamic adjustment system of the permanent magnets in order to assure the machine adhesion to the surfaces, even when crossing slightly irregular and curved surfaces with a large radius.
Abstract-This paper presents a deterministic optimization technique for the optimal location of normally open switch on a real distribution network, located in north of Portugal. The goal is to find the optimal radial topology that minimizes the power losses. The method is developed in TOMLAB software, and is formulated as a mixed integer quadratic programming problem. Given the current characteristics of the network, the method is based on optimal power flow through DC model. The power losses are given by the Joule effect, calculated according to each distribution line. In order to prove the viability of the obtained results, the proposed methodology is compared with a software used by Portuguese operator for distribution networks planning.
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