Electric field disturbance caused by an unmanned aerial vehicle flying near the HV power transmission line

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has been used by the electric utility in many situations such as the power transmission line inspection. When the UAV flying close to the high voltage (HV) power transmission line, there are risks of flashover through the UAV or corona discharge on the UAV because of the electric field disturbance caused by the UAV. To estimate the safe distance between the UAV and transmission lines or insulators, a simulation model had been built by the Finite Element Method (FEM) which including the UAV and a standard 220kV power transmission line. By analyzing the electric field distributions caused by the distance between the UAV and transmission lines, the relation between the distance R from UAV to transmission line and the maximum electric field strength on the UAV was obtained. The FEM simulation results reveal that the electric discharging will not happen when the distance between the UAV and transmission line is not less than 0.1 m, and a smooth structure of UAV will be better.