An Autonomous Obstacles Negotiating Inspection Robot for Extra-High Voltage Power Transmission Lines

The purpose of inspection tasks for power transmission lines is to check running state and find damages of extra-high voltage (EHV) power transmission lines equipment. Obviously, inspection tasks are very important for normal operation of power transmission lines. So far, there are two methods for checking power transmission lines. One method is that power transmission line equipment has been checked manually by workers with a telescope on the ground. Another method is that power transmission line equipment has been inspected by helicopter with the checking devices which are thermal infrared imager, visible light camera and so on. After inspection robot configuration is described, the centroid adjustment principle of inspection robot is introduced. Then the control strategy of inspection robot is investigated. From the experiments, we find that the centroid adjustment method proposed and the control strategy presented is feasible.