Artículo
Autonomous UAV System for Cleaning Insulators in Power Line Inspection and Maintenance
Autor/es | López López, Ricardo
Batista Sánchez, Manuel Jesús Pérez Jiménez, Manuel Arrue Ullés, Begoña C. Ollero Baturone, Aníbal |
Departamento | Universidad de Sevilla. Departamento de Ingeniería de Sistemas y Automática |
Fecha de publicación | 2021-11 |
Fecha de depósito | 2022-03-31 |
Publicado en |
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Resumen | The inspection and maintenance tasks of electrical installations are very demanding.
Nowadays, insulator cleaning is carried out manually by operators using scaffolds, ropes, or even
helicopters. However, these operations ... The inspection and maintenance tasks of electrical installations are very demanding. Nowadays, insulator cleaning is carried out manually by operators using scaffolds, ropes, or even helicopters. However, these operations involve potential risks for humans and the electrical structure. The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) to reduce the risk of these tasks is rising. This paper presents an UAV to autonomously clean insulators on power lines. First, an insulator detection and tracking algorithm has been implemented to control the UAV in operation. Second, a cleaning tool has been designed consisting of a pump, a tank, and an arm to direct the flow of cleaning liquid. Third, a vision system has been developed that is capable of detecting soiled areas using a semantic segmentation neuronal network, calculating the trajectory for cleaning in the image plane, and generating arm trajectories to efficiently clean the insulator. Fourth, an autonomous system has been developed to land on a charging pad to charge the batteries and potentially fill the tank with cleaning liquid. Finally, the autonomous system has been validated in a controlled outdoor environment. |
Agencias financiadoras | AERIAL-CORE project (Horizon 2020) 871479 DREAM project under CDTI-FEDER INTERCONNECTA 2018 Programme |
Identificador del proyecto | AERIAL-CORE: 871479 |
Cita | López López, R., Batista Sánchez, M.J., Pérez Jiménez, M., Arrue Ullés, B.C. y Ollero Baturone, A. (2021). Autonomous UAV System for Cleaning Insulators in Power Line Inspection and Maintenance. Sensors, 21 (24), 8488 |
Ficheros | Tamaño | Formato | Ver | Descripción |
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SE_2021_López_Autonomous.pdf | 9.287Mb | [PDF] | Ver/ | |