How long it is needed to find the origin of a power outage in a hard-to-reach power line after a strong storm? This week, the GRVC team has demonstrated that this is possible in less than 15 minutes.
More in detail, a fleet of UAVs (two multi-rotors and one fixed-wing aircraft with VTOL capabilities) carried out the inspection of several kilometres of a real power line autonomously. For that, the team followed a plan that took into account the heterogeneous capabilities of the different robots, their energy consumption and the wind conditions, among other information. As a result, the robots were able to find a simulated outage and go back to their operation bases. There, they landed autonomously in recharging stations making use of vision-based algorithms to be ready for the next operation.
Finally, an additional UAV performed the accurate real-time mapping of the area around the detected failure. Thanks to this map, a team of workers can plan the best strategy to repair the failure. All these advances were showcased in a live demonstration organized for our end user ENDESA.
Also, the GRVC team achieved for the first time the realization of an aerial transportation, deployment and retrieval operation of an anthropomorphic dual arm system on a real power line to conduct the installation of bird flight diverters while rolling along the line. The experiments were successfully carried out in the ATLAS Flight Center managed by FADA-CATEC as part of the preparation of the final demonstration of the AERIAL-CORE project, including a live demonstration to several people from ENDESA.
The European H2020 project AERIAL-CORE, coordinated by Aníbal Ollero, carried out, from 22 to 26 May, a campaign of experiments at the ATLAS Experimental Flight Centre of FADA-CATEC. This Research and Innovation project has 15 partners from 10 different European countries, including European leaders in aerial robotics research and highly innovative companies. The project applies artificial intelligence techniques to: increase the duration and flight range of unmanned aerial vehicles out of line of sight, perform manipulation tasks with aerial robots, and collaborate with people working at heights. The results of the project are being validated in the inspection and maintenance of ENDESA’s power lines, which is part of the AERIAL-CORE consortium, in ATLAS airspace.
A team of aerial robots from the University of Seville, consisting of multi-rotors and fixed-wing flight vehicles with vertical take-off and landing capabilities, known as VTOL, carried out a 10-kilometre inspection of 5 power lines completely autonomously, without the intervention of any person, including landing, also automatically, to recharge batteries. The inspection was carried out according to an optimal plan, calculated taking into account both the aircraft’s aircraft capabilities and wind conditions. In addition, a map of several kilometres was made using LIDAR mapping of several kilometres of the vegetation around the line, which is relevant for monitoring the separation of the vegetation around the line. to monitor the separation of the vegetation. In this mapping activity, the University of Seville also used artificial intelligence techniques from the team at the University of Thessaloniki (Greece). University of Thessaloniki (Greece).
In addition, both the University of Seville and FADA-CATEC conducted manipulation experiments with aerial robots in the maintenance of power lines. In particular, an aerial robot from the University of Seville landed on a line by deploying a two-armed manipulator robot that rolled over the line and installed “bird-saving” devices, the display of which prevents birds from colliding with the lines. Finally, the aerial robot picked up the manipulator robot on the line and returned to the ground. CATEC’s aerial robot, equipped with a robotic arm developed by the University of Naples, hung on the line, moving to place and remove bird-saving devices, as well as making connections to stations for recharging the aerial robots’ batteries from the line’s energy, which are also being developed in the project. In addition, the French company Donecle carried out operator assistance experiments including the verification of the discharge of the lines by means of a device with a clamp installed on the robot and the delivery or retrieval of tools assisted by a gesture recognition algorithm developed by the University of Thessaloniki.
In addition, the Spanish company FUVEX conducted experiments with its tilt-rotor aircraft and the University of Zagreb used its end-effectors to perform maintenance tasks with the manipulator robots. More than 35 ENDESA specialists attended the experiments, which were excellently organised by FADA-CATEC. The results represent a milestone in the application of aerial robotics to line inspection and maintenance, reinforce the leadership of the University of Seville and FADA-CATEC in the application of aerial robotics and can also be applied to the inspection and maintenance of other large off-line structures.