Reaching and performing operations on overhead power line cables is challenging and mainly carried out by helicopters or foot patrol. This paper proposes a light-weight and low-cost drone platform for detecting overhead cables to autonomously grasp them through an integrated soft gripper. The cable detection system utilizes a pair of solid-state LiDARs with differing field-of-views and a small onboard companion computer to detect 38mm cables while maintaining accurate alignment to perform grasping. A full drone airframe with a soft gripper has been designed, analyzed and manufactured to serve this work. A set of algorithms and software tools have been developed to accomplish an autonomous drone mission to reach a cable. The overall drone system (LOCATOR) has been tested and validated in simulation and verified in an outdoor setup that reflects the real power line infrastructure.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have introduced benefits in many areas of the energy sector. Today, power line sensor deployment is manually executed on passive power lines using helicopters, introducing great risks, costs and difficulties for the power distribution companies and the human operators.In this paper, we present a novel modular mechanical system utilizing pneumatic as the actuation source to deploy a sensor unit to a power line using a UAV, with aid of an autonomous alignment algorithm. The results show that the UAV can facilitate the sensor unit, and is capable of deploying it to the power line in an autonomous manner. The works leave opportunity for expanding to further applications in the future.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been introduced in the energy domain to solve complex tasks involving operations in close proximity to active power lines. Previous research by the authors explore how to grasp such power lines to secure a split-core transformer around the conductor, and hereby harvest energy to recharge the UAVs batteries towards continuous operation. However, no previous research investigate how to integrate an energy harvester (current transformer) into a mechanical grasping solution for a UAV system. In this work, the authors present a novel approach to an integrated mechanism prioritizing low weight for extended flight time. By utilizing the strong electromagnetic forces, the system prove opportunity for further optimization and adoption in other use cases across the UAV domain as well.
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