OBSTACLE AVOIDANCE MECHANISM

FOR TRANSMISSION LINE INSPECTION ROBOT

Muhamed Jishad T K (P190061EE)
PhD, Electrical Engineering Department, NIT Calicut

MECHANICAL MODEL OF THE ROBOT ABSTRACT BLOCK DIAGRAM

Since the power transmission lines spread across the ●
Arduino is the brain of the robot. Arduino is an open-
country over a vast variety of geographical regions, source electronics prototyping platform designed
identifying the faults in the line and rectifying them has around either an 8-bit Atmel AVR or a 32-bit Atmel
become a challenging task for the service providers. Here, ARM micro-controller.
we propose a robot for inspecting power lines that can ●
The control signals for driving the motors are
travel on overhead cables and overcome spacers, generated by Arduino according to input from sensors.
suspension clamps, and other obstacles. The remotely
operated robot is intelligent and can protect itself from
colliding with any object which may come across it. A
prototype with the necessary sensors and controllers was
Figure 1: (1) Frond view (2) Figure 2: Robot joints and
Side view (3) Top view degrees of freedom fabricated and tested in the laboratory and real-time
environments.
The design considerations were,
●
The robot has to perform very complex acrobatic
movements to overcome obstacles. CONCLUSION
●
During the stage of obstacle avoidance, the center of The existing inspection methods require human
gravity has to be changed in order to keep the balance intervention which is time-consuming, dangerous and
and stability of the robot. prone to errors. The robot can travel along the
●
The obstacles which may occur during the inspection transmission line and detect faults before it leads to power
process may vary in shape and size. failure. The working environment along with the nature of
●
Hence it is necessary to have a better degrees of
obstacles involved was studied and the robot design was Figure 3: Block diagram representation of the robot
freedom to overcome them.
done accordingly.

COMMUNICATION OBSTACLE AVOIDANCE MECHANISM

●
Raspberry Pi is used for ●
The main objective of this design is to enable the robot to cross the
wireless communication and suspension clamps on the transmission line.
live transmission of captured ●
During normal operation, three wheels of the robot will stay on the
video. line.
●
The video transmitted ●
The robot can lift one wheel at a time during obstacle avoidance by
through Wi-Fi can be keeping at least two wheels on the line.
received by a computer with ●
Figure 5 illustrates different stages of obstacle avoidance
Figure 4: Video procesdure.
Wi-Fi connectivity. Figure 5: Different stages of obstacle avoidance
transmission architecture