LOCATOR - Lightweight and Low-Cost Autonomous Drone System for Overhead Cable Detection and Soft Grasping

Reaching and performing operations on overhead power line cables is challenging and mainly carried out by helicopters or foot patrol. This paper proposes a light-weight and low-cost drone platform for detecting overhead cables to autonomously grasp them through an integrated soft gripper. The cable detection system utilizes a pair of solid-state LiDARs with differing field-of-views and a small onboard companion computer to detect 38mm cables while maintaining accurate alignment to perform grasping. A full drone airframe with a soft gripper has been designed, analyzed and manufactured to serve this work. A set of algorithms and software tools have been developed to accomplish an autonomous drone mission to reach a cable. The overall drone system (LOCATOR) has been tested and validated in simulation and verified in an outdoor setup that reflects the real power line infrastructure.