A Two-layer Routing Algorithm for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle in Transmission Line Inspection

Abstract

The inspection of transmission lines using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) has already grabbed many utility companies' attention because of the high efficiency and successful applications in different areas. In this paper, a two-layer routing algorithm is proposed to guide the motion of the ground team and the schedule of the landing points of the UAV considering the simultaneous motion between the UAV and ground team in transmission line inspections. The constraints for the UAVs flight route in the upper layer include the limited communication distance with the ground vehicle and the bottleneck of battery capacity. Meanwhile, the rough terrain or the lack of accessible road is the constraint for the ground vehicle in the lower layer. The inspection trip is first separated into several transmission line segments considering the locations of substations. Then, considering battery replacements, each transmission line segment is further separated into several inspection segments. The algorithm will check the feasibility of both ground route and flight route for each inspection segment considering the constraints and then revise it accordingly. Finally, the inspection sequence of all transmission line segments is identified considering the transportation time between substations. A case study of three real transmission line segments connected by four substations is implemented to show the performance of the proposed algorithm.

Department(s)

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering

Keywords and Phrases

Routing algorithm; Transmission line inspection; UAV

International Standard Book Number (ISBN)

978-099751959-4

Document Type

Article - Conference proceedings

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2024 American Society of Engineering Management, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jan 2020

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