Teleoperated robots for live power lines maintenance (ROBTET)

As a consequence of today's highly information oriented society and increasing demand of electricity, uninterrupted power supply has become a must for electrical companies. Outage-free maintenance techniques in overhead distribution lines have been developed and used in Spain for more than 25 years in order to achieve this. In these conventional techniques workers have to do their job on a live electrical power line, indirectly with various kinds of hot-sticks or directly touching the line suspended on an insulated aerial device. Therefore, work is performed in a hazardous environment with both the risk of electric shock and the danger of falling from a high place. In addition, workers have to be very skilled and work cooperatively under very demanding tasks. Since the first telerobotic developments for live-line maintenance back in the mid-eighties, several systems have been presented through the years. IBERDROLA began back in 1990, in cooperation with contracting company COBRA, S.A. and DISAM (Polytechnic University of Madrid), the first studies in order to introduce robotic techniques into distribution hot-lines work. A new industrial prototype, called ROBTET (Robot para Trabajos En Tension) began development in 1994. This paper presents a detailed description of the ROBTET, making special emphasis on the architecture implemented and the solutions adopted regarding different design issues. Innovations with respect to similar systems are also addressed.