Research on the application of UAV technology in power inspection information management

introduction

With the rapid development of the national economy, people's yearning for a better life and the continuous advancement of the process of energy globalization, the scale of transmission lines has continued to expand, and the requirements for the operation and maintenance of transmission lines have continued to increase. The traditional power inspection method can no longer meet the requirements of power inspection information management. As a platform that can move flexibly in the air, drones can carry different payloads and have the advantages of simple control, fast and efficient, easy network coordination inspection, and low maintenance cost. UAV power inspection also has the advantages of high efficiency, precision, and speed, and is particularly suitable for inspecting power lines in complex terrain environments such as mountainous areas and hills. The application of drone technology is conducive to improving the efficiency of transmission line inspection and the level of information management of power inspection.

1 Introduction to UAV Technology

UAV is the abbreviation of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) which is controlled by radio remote control equipment and self-contained program control device. UAV, control station, communication system and equipment support system together constitute the UAV system.

(1) UAVs. To meet the requirements of industrial control, UAVs need to have the following characteristics: First, to ensure that the UAV can fly stably in the air and can adapt to different working conditions, its appearance design needs to be reasonable; second, it must have sufficient load capacity to ensure that it can carry information collection systems and different mission equipment; third, it can complete specific work tasks, such as power line inspection, obstacle removal, wire laying, autonomous inspection, etc.; finally, it must have remote wireless image transmission and positioning functions.

(2) Control station (GCS). The control station is an important part of the UAV system, providing the human-machine interface and working environment for the UAV operator. It is mainly responsible for the UAV's route planning, take-off and landing, mission execution and management, information collection, control calculation and emergency handling.

(3) Communication system. The communication system serves as a bridge between the UAV and the control station, enabling the transmission of control information, mission payload information, UAV status information, images, videos and other data between the two.

(4) Equipment support system. It mainly provides necessary technical support and safety guarantee for the normal operation of UAVs, meets the needs of UAVs for electricity, oil, etc. during field operations, and realizes the requirements of transfer operations.

1. Multi-rotor UAV power inspection system

The multi-rotor UAV power inspection system is not restricted by terrain. It uses advanced image acquisition equipment such as advanced infrared imagers and 30x zoom visible light cameras to inspect the power line channels and environment, conductors and ground wires, insulators, hardware, poles, foundations, lightning protection facilities and grounding devices, protective facilities and other details. The inspection results are transmitted to the ground station for on-site technicians to analyze and eliminate faults, and are remotely transmitted to the power grid dispatching center via 4G, providing detailed and comprehensive on-site data and information for power line operation analysis, equipment status maintenance, and information management. The structure diagram of the multi-rotor UAV power inspection system is shown in Figure 1. It mainly consists of six parts: multi-rotor UAV, power system, GPS navigation system, information collection system, information transmission system and control system.

Figure 1 Multi-rotor UAV power inspection system

(1) Multi-rotor drones. The Hanguang A700 quad-rotor drone is used. It has a fully enclosed fuselage and is rain and snow proof, and can perform tasks in rainy and snowy weather. It uses a mature flight control system with precise control, strong fault tolerance and adaptability, and stable flight attitude, ensuring flight safety. The aircraft has a maximum load of 3.3kg, a flight time of 45 minutes, can withstand level 6 winds, and a maximum image and data transmission distance of 8km. It has a certain electromagnetic anti-interference ability and can meet the requirements of power inspection.

(2) Power system. The power system of the quadcopter drone is mainly composed of three parts: power motor, power supply and speed control system. The power motor adopts a brushless motor, the power supply adopts a 16000mAh 6S lithium polymer battery, and the speed control system adopts a brushless electric regulator to adjust the speed of the motor according to the control signal.

(3) GPS navigation system. The GPS navigation system is an important guarantee for power line inspections. It lays the foundation for quadcopters to conduct power line inspections more safely and reliably. When inspecting power lines, the real-time position of the drone is directly obtained by GPS positioning. When inspecting power lines, the drone pilot controls the drone to a safe distance from the power line in advance, locks the power line identification gimbal tracking system, and automatically controls the angle of the gimbal based on the location information of the GPS navigation system tool inspection, realizing automatic shooting of poles, hardware and wires.

(4) Information collection system. The visible light information collection system and the infrared thermal imaging system are organically combined to realize efficient, accurate and comprehensive information collection of power lines. The drone is equipped with a Zenmuse fixed-focus camera and a Zenmuse Z30 zoom camera to take photos and videos of the overall, local and detailed (foundation, tower, ground wire, insulator, shock-absorbing hammer, suspension wire, etc.) of the power line, and timely discover potential faults. The drone is equipped with an infrared thermal imaging camera to complete the information collection of the two-dimensional distribution and change state of the surface temperature of power equipment and lines, and discover hidden and dangerous abnormal heating points of transmission lines at night, providing a reliable basis for fault monitoring of power lines.

(5) Information transmission system. The images, videos, and thermal imaging information collected by the drone information collection system are transmitted to the ground station via wireless image transmission for real-time monitoring, as shown in Figure 2. They can also be transmitted to the power grid dispatching center via the remote 4G real-time image transmission system, providing a reference for the information management of power inspections.

(6) Control system. The UAV power inspection control system mainly realizes the classification and management of the images, videos, thermal imaging and other information collected by the UAV according to the collection personnel, address, etc., which is convenient for professional technicians to observe and find line faults through data software analysis, and realizes real-time monitoring and management of power lines.

3. Power inspection operation process

In order to improve the efficiency and safety of UAV power inspection, facilitate the information management of power operations, ensure the quality of power inspection operations, formulate a reasonable and standardized UAV inspection operation process, and transmit the operation process to the power grid dispatching center through mobile terminals when performing inspection operations.

4 Conclusion

The application research of UAV technology in power inspection provides a new solution for power line inspection, and provides effective technical support in terms of information management of power inspection, real-time information collection and transmission, intelligent management of inspection results, work assessment, etc. With the continuous practice of UAV inspection system in power inspection and the application of Beidou navigation system in UAV inspection system, UAV line inspection will become a safer and more efficient inspection method, which is conducive to the realization of automation and information management of power inspection and accelerate the pace of intelligent inspection of power grid.