A roadmap for automated power line inspection, maintenance and repair

Today, power line operators perform visual inspection to check the status of their transmission lines mainly by using helicopters equipped with external gimbals housing infrared and ultraviolet cameras to detect hot spots and corona discharges. This solution is quite expensive, dangerous for the crew and not very reliable. Future power grids integrating remote eco-power like wind and sun will require a much intensive supervision due to the high load and the rising vulnerability of the network. A project was initiated at Fraunhofer IPA to explore the feasibility of a totally automated system capable of a rigorous live line inspection strategy based on a completely autonomous mobile platform. Focus of this paper is, presenting the state of the art of the most important current projects concerning the two main categories of robots offering a solution of automation, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and rolling on wires robots (RWR), to create a roadmap for researchers and industries to implement a "FULLY AUTOMATED LIVE LINE POWER LINE INSPECTION CONCEPT": including a power line data management system with specific tool for image and signal data processing to automatically detect defects or abnormal conditions.