A flying robotic system for power line corridor inspection

So far, the inspection of power line corridors is mainly carried out by manual or helicopters. However, manual inspection is very labour-intensive and inefficient. On the other hand, the cost of the inspection using helicopters is very high. Also the safety of helicopters cannot be guaranteed. In recent years, some researchers have started to use unmanned helicopters to inspect power lines. Nevertheless, their focuses are the development of autonomous control systems. In this paper, we present an applied inspection robotic system based on an unmanned autonomous helicopter (UAH) for power line corridor inspection. Our interest is on the combination of the autonomous helicopter and the inspection system for the practical application in the field. This paper describes the whole architecture of the robotic system and presents some design issues. The experimental results are presented as well.