An Autonomous Drone System for Scanning an Electric Field Using Visual Feedback

Measuring of the electric field strength in the proximity of high-voltage devices, even several hundred thousand volts, both in the case of AC and DC current, is a challenging and dangerous task. Furthermore, in many cases the measurement seems to be even impossible to carry out. During gauging the electric field it is necessary to provide insulation between the sensor and the ground which involves the need to maintain a large distance from the grounding point. In light of the problems described, the use of drones for measurements could be a good solution. This paper describes selected aspects of a complex system ready to perform automatic mapping of the electric field. It includes the description of AC and DC sensors, proof of concept of electric field mapping with a manually operated drone, and the proposed automatic control system. The paper tackles experiment aspects by presenting various tries executed for system development as well as full case study showcasing a complete solution. Finally, the paper presents a method of electric field measurement carried out by the proposed fully automatic system based on vision feedback that uses the scanning trajectories to control the drone. As a result, the proposed method enables measuring the distribution of the electric field in the three-dimensional space that provides information not available otherwise. Therefore that could be exploited to e.g. the insulation damage detection. The main advantage of the proposed system is the fully autonomous process of scanning that could be employed in widely-understood devices diagnostic.