Mechanism Design for New Sensors Field Deployment by LineRanger Powerline Robot
Pierre-Luc Richard, Jonathan Bellemare, Philippe Hamelin, Camille Hébert, Ghislain Lambert, Samuel Lavoie, Sébastien Leprohon, Matthieu Montfrond
Abstract
Powerline robotics is slowly becoming key tools for electric utilities. Contrary to drones that are usually limited to inspection tasks, wheeled robots like LineRanger can perform a broader range of applications. In this paper, a suite of mechanical devices is featured, as several new asset management tasks were recently added to LineRanger’s capabilities. While previous applications focused on non-contact inspection (visual, electro-magnetic, etc.), the new tasks at hand involved reaching adjacent conductors to probe line components with micro-Ohmmeter, installing and retrieving custom build sensors for multi-day line monitoring, and assessing aging conductors surface properties, to refine their thermal model and optimize the line capacity during heat waves. All three applications were recently field validated onto LineRanger, and mechanical design insights shall be presented for each module.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{icra2024_mechanismdesignf,
title = {Mechanism Design for New Sensors Field Deployment by LineRanger Powerline Robot},
author = {Pierre-Luc Richard and Jonathan Bellemare and Philippe Hamelin and Camille Hébert and Ghislain Lambert and Samuel Lavoie and Sébastien Leprohon and Matthieu Montfrond and Marion Nourry and Alex Sartor and Nicolas Pouliot},
booktitle = {ICRA 2024},
year = {2024}
}