Detection and classification of clearance anomalies on over-head power lines

by Alberto Vale, João Gomes-Mota

Albatroz Engineering, Lisbon, Portugal

published on CONTROLO2006, the 7th Portuguese Conference on Automatic Control, Lisbon, 11-13 September 2006.

Note: CONTROLO is a biannual meeting organised by APCA - Associação Portuguesa de Controlo Automático, Portugal's national member of IFAC.

Abstract

An on-the-fly solution is proposed to be carried on an aircraft used to inspect over-head power lines to find anomalies to the safety distances required for electrical power exploitation, yielding a significant contribution to hazard reduction and improving quality of service. The solution is based on laser range scanner and GPS used to measure distances and to create a 3D model of the environment around the line. The paper focuses on the algorithms for data clustering, interpolation, heuristics, classification and anomaly detection. Field results are shown.

Keywords

Solid-state lasers, Global Positioning Systems, Classification, Probabilistic Risk Assessment, Safety, Power Lines, Airborne, LIDAR