A Review of Robots for Inspection and Maintenance of Metallic Towers of Electricity Transmission

Abstract

Transmission towers that support electric power fines are usually inspected manually by workers that climb them and visually inspect to find oxidation points. If oxidation is seen it must be repaired to ensure the integrity of the structure. This process is slow and dangerous for the workers. Due to the possibility of electrical shocks as well as falling from the structures that are around 50 meters high. In recent years the need to substitute human workers in hostile environments by equipments and robots that bring more safety in the realization of these tasks has arisen. In this paper, a bibliographic review of papers that presented conceptions of robots that can climb transmission towers and execute its inspection, search for oxi¬dation points and even do small maintenances is done. Through the use of a patent search methodology a preliminary and a detailed search were done, with a diversity of keywords about the subject as well as its combinations [1]. The preliminary search resulted in 2901 patents, which lead to the detailed search and finally culminated in the analysis of 164 patents, from which four showed technological potential to be analysed in this review.