A Fire-Risk-Breakdown System for Electrical Power Lines in the North of Brazil

Abstract

Anthropogenic or spontaneous fires (hotspots) are the main causes of unexpected breakdowns of electrical power lines in the northern region of Brazil. This research has tested, adapted, and implemented a preoperational system aiming to prevent electrical breakdowns for 382 km of electrical transmission lines in the state of Maranhão. The breakdown electrical fire risk is based on a combination of three variables: 1) the fire risk index, 2) the remotely sensed hotspot presence in the vicinity of electrical power lines, and 3) the vegetation stage. These variables are converted into Boolean variables, and their combination will classify the electrical fire risk as extreme, high, medium, low, or null. In regard to the system input variables, the fire risk index carries the highest representativeness in composition value of the breakdown electrical fire risk. Therefore, the results of two fire risk indices, calculated on the basis of the (a) Monte Alegre and (b) Angstrom methods, are presented and discussed. The validation of the fire risk indices is based on six categorical statistics (with the obtained final values also indicated in parentheses for the Monte Alegre and Angstrom methods, respectively): accuracy (0.91, 0.92), bias (1.05, 1.06), probability of detection (0.98, 0.99), false-alarm ratio (0.07, 0.07), probability of false detection (0.90, 0.80), and threat score (0.91, 0.92). The system presented here may be used as a tool within the electrical sector to prevent and respond to sudden electrical power line breakdowns.

Flying Robot Based Viewpoint Selection for the Electricity Transmission Equipment Inspection

“…In a closed scene, or if the viewpoint does not see the background, the whole sphere is covered by the projected patches and consequently 0 = 0. / represents the visibility of patch with respect to viewpoint , depending on the property of the entropy that the entropy should be maximal if all the are equally likely, and for equiprobable the entropy should increase with the number of as (3) show. From the combination of (2) and (3), we can see that a viewpoint which gets a higher value of ( ) always includes more patches and each patch tends to get the same projected area.…”

“…Electricity transmission equipment inspection is an essential job for the maintenance of electrical grids since the fault of the electricity transmission equipment easily causes the power outages, which can directly lead to the failure of nodes in the Internet communication network, transportation networks, social media networks, and many other relative networks [1], and it will give rise to the inconvenience of our lives. More importantly, the power outages always result in large economic losses [2,3]. Early detection of potential anomalies and timely maintenance can help to avoid grid faults, thus reducing economic losses and benefiting customer, relative networks, and electricity company [4,5].…”

A Multiple Sensors Platform Method for Power Line Inspection Based on a Large Unmanned Helicopter

“…Because the power lines and towers suffer from long-term exposure to the environmental conditions in the field, combining the influences of material aging, thunder strikes, and interference from trees, it is highly possible for malfunctions of electric power equipment to happen, including broken conductors, damaged or overheating insulators, tilted towers, and discharges caused by trees [1,2]. Therefore electric power departments need to conduct regular inspection on electric transmission lines, to detect potential abnormal conditions and to conduct timely maintenance.…”

“…With the development of the global economy and population, the power demand keeps rising, leading to an increasing scale of expansion of overhead transmission lines, of which a major part needs to cross regions with relatively adverse natural environment and complex terrain, such as rivers, mountains, forests and even depopulated zones, etc. Because the power lines and towers suffer from long-term exposure to the environmental conditions in the field, combining the influences of material aging, thunder strikes, and interference from trees, it is highly possible for malfunctions of electric power equipment to happen, including broken conductors, damaged or overheating insulators, tilted towers, and discharges caused by trees [ 1 , 2 ]. Therefore electric power departments need to conduct regular inspection on electric transmission lines, to detect potential abnormal conditions and to conduct timely maintenance.…”

A 3D Laboratory Test-Platform for Overhead Power Line Inspection

“…More importantly, power outages will result in large economic losses [1,2]. Early detection of potential anomalies and timely maintenance can help avoid grid faults and reduce economic losses, further benefitting customers and electricity companies.…”