巡线机器人

of devices defined in the standards, signaling spheres are most commonly used. They are mainly installed in spans near airports and over highways, rivers and valleys. Signaling devices could be mounted during power line construction, but oftentimes this is not possible due to several practical reasons. New highway construction, expansion of urban centers are some of the reasons that demand post-installation of signaling spheres. Adding to the previous reasons, there is also the need to maintain and many times substitute old or even broken warning devices. Today, just in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, 3000 new spheres must be installed. Similar requirements exist in other states and countries. High quality energy controlled by strict government regulations specially on the availability of electric power systems, has made it almost impossible for as electric power company t o interrupt energy distribution for maintenance purposes, even if for a short period of time. Therefore, the so called hot-line operations are frequently used, but with not few accidents involving loss of lives as well as power interruption. Nowadays the installation and removal of signaling spheres in hot lines involves high risk operations. An electrician is flown on the skis of an helicopter that hovers a couple of meters off the energized lines while the electrician quickly installs the device. This is repeated for every device to be installed. Accidents usually imply in loss of lives and black-outs of wide regions. The costs involved are high, roughly US$ 700.00 per sphere, at the time this article was writ ten. Increasing demands on the urgent signaling of
unsignalled power transmission lines and structures imposed by aviation administrative organisms, the great difficulty in hiring pilots and electricians even at higher costs and the large number of devices that still need to be installed and old ones to be maintained or even removed have elicited the development of the robot which is the focus of this work. This robot was designed under a contract with the CEMIG - Companhia Energbtica de Minas Gerais -, the state’s electric power company, in order to significantly reduce the risks and costs related to the installation, removal and maintenance of warning spheres in overhead ground wires (lightening arrestors) of aerial power transmission lines. Similar efforts described in the literature, are discussed next. Section 3 focuses on the key issues of sphere installation automation process. Sections 4 and 5 detail the solution employed. Relevant aspects of system implementation are under Section 6, which is followed by a description of the experiments on a real transmission line in Section 7 and a discussion of the results in Section 8.
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, AV. Ant6nio Carlos 6626, 31270-901, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil.
Abstract
A semi-autonomous robot for autonomous installation and removal of aircraft warning spheres on overhead wires of electric power transmission lines is described here. Hybrid systems methodology was used to model the basic modes of operation of the robot, which includes both autonomous and tele-operation possibilities. Several sensors and actuators including a custom made gripper are w e d to accomplish the demanded tasks. The robot was built and tested in real operational situations and proved to be both eficient and robwt. I t will enable power distribution companies to replace current highly dangerous operations which are normally performed by a human operator placed in a helicopter hovering a few meters away of hotlines. Broader use of this robot in several other comm o n tasks such as line inspection and cleaning, cable changing and object transportation are discussed.
M&rioF. M. Campos Guilherme A. S. Pereira Samuel R. C. Vale
Laboratdrio de Visiio Computacional e Rob6tica Departamento de Ciencia da Computa@o {mario, gpereira, vale}@dcc.ufmg.br
0-7803-7272-7/02/$17.00 0 2002 IEEE
3559
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Alexandre Q. Bracarense Gustavo A. Pinheiro Mauricio P. Oliveira
Laboratbrio de Robdtica, Soldagem e Simulqiio Departamento de Engenharia Mechica {queiroz, uberaba, mauricio}@demec.ufmg. br
Proceedings of the 2002 IEEE International Conference on Robotics 8 Automation Washington, DC May 2002
A mobile manipulator for installation and removal of aircraft warning spheres on aerial power transmission lines
1 IntroductionБайду номын сангаас
The ever growing demand for electric power of modern society, with its highly developed urban centers, has been pulling millions of kilometers of aerial transmission lines. For the most part, these lines are erected several meters above the ground by steel structures in spans as large as 400 meters. Needless to say, unmarked aerial transmission lines present serious hazard to aerial navigation, and has been the cause of serious accidents. The standards for such signaling is generally defined by national laws, which are very similar for different countries. In Brazil there is the NBR 7276 standard from 1982. Among the several types