On Thursday, August 26, Ural Federal University (UrFU) announced that its research team had updated its Kanatokhod ('Cable Walker' in Russian) robot. The new, improved model will allow preventing accidents caused by ice and wet snow deposition on wires and structures of high-voltage lines. UrFU has been working on this project together with the other members of the Ural Interregional Research and Education Center.
The essence of the new technology is the application of special anti-icing coatings on wires and OPGW cables of high-voltage lines, with no requirement for their disconnection. Tests of the technology were carried out successfully at the facilities of the Rosseti Ural company in Sverdlovsk Oblast and Perm Krai, UrFU's Press Office informs.
"A significant advantage of the robotic complex is the solution of the problem of electromagnetic compatibility", says Alexander Lemekh, head of the Laboratory of the Future enterprise.
Robots of the Kanatokhod series are already widely known — they allow to remotely monitor and determine the places of possible damage on power lines. The new type can detect various defects in the elements of overhead power lines with the help of five machine vision systems, being on the switched-on line. The Main Electric Grids of the Urals company has shown interest in UrFU's technology.
Let us recall that KuzSTU's researchers have presented a technology to monitor power lines using the neural network developed by the university's specialists. It analyses photos taken by drones. Artificial intelligence's role will be to identify defects in electric poles, wiring cables, high-voltage lines.
