Wireless image transmission in electric power hostile environment

This paper presents the study carried out at Universidade de São Paulo and CTEEP to apply wireless communication standards for video, voice and data transmission in Power Line high voltage environment, and provide a communication tool to help the activities of the electricians. In this context, WiFi and ZigBee standards were studied, evaluated and tested considering the specifications and environment constraints. Therefore, this paper presents the system configuration proposed considering, besides the functional specification aspects of usability (size, weight, and low power consumption), laboratory and field tests results in actual Power Transmission Line. Preliminary results show the applicability of ZigBee technology for the desired solution, but also the needed of establishing a restrictive specification, especially in image transmission in real-time, due to the interference of the Power Line environment and the narrow bandwidth of the communication channel.