Power line inspection and maintenance already benefit from developments in mobile robotics. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the state of the art. It focuses on mobile robots designed to cross obstacles found on a typical transmission line while using the conductor as support for traveling. Promising areas of research and development as well as challenges that remain to be solved are discussed with a view to developing fully autonomous technologies. Maintenance tasks, including inspection and repairs, are identified as high-value applications in transmission live-line work. Conclusions are drawn from experience, and the future of mobile robotics applied to transmission line maintenance is discussed. C 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Historically, the inspection and maintenance of high-voltage power lines have been performed by linemen using various traditional means. In recent years, the use of robots appeared as a new and complementary method of performing such tasks, as several initiatives have been explored around the world. Among them is the teleoperated robotic platform called LineScout Technology, developed by Hydro-Québec, which has the capacity to clear most obstacles found on the grid. Since its 2006 introduction in the operations, it is considered by many utilities as the pioneer project in the domain. This paper's purpose is to present the mobile platform design and its main mechatronics subsystems to support a comprehensive description of the main functions and application modules it offers. This includes sensors and a compact modular arm equipped with tools to repair cables and broken conductor strands. This system has now been used on many occasions to assess the condition of power line infrastructure and some results are presented. Finally, future developments and potential technologies roadmap are briefly discussed.INDEX TERMS Field robotics, power line inspection, teleoperation.

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This paper presents the concept of underactuation applied to grippers and mechanical hands. The main objective of this work is the kinematic analysis and design of underactuated mechanisms. First, the kinematic and static modeling of these mechanisms is addressed and a general kinetostatic model is proposed. Then, a two-degree-of-freedom underactuated gripper based on a five-bar planar mechanism is studied in order to illustrate the usefulness of the model in a context of analysis and design.