A survey of applied robotics for the power industry in Brazil

Currently, the power industry in Brazil is a system with many public and private companies competing by market rules and regulated by an specific agency (ANEEL). The legal mark for the power industry defines the Research and Development (R&D) Program of the Power Sector. By a Federal Law companies operating under concession, permission or authorization of the government in distribution, transmission or power generation should apply a minimum percentage of their net operational revenues in research and development. The power companies have the decision on which project to fund, but they do not conduct the R&D themselves. Instead, they should apply the resources by contracting a national research and development institution. The results are evaluated by ANEEL, an if not considered appropriate, the resources are considered as not applied and should be applied again in another project in the next year. A significant amount of resources from the R&D programs, have been used to fund the development of robotic devices. This paper presents a survey of those developments.