چكيده به لاتين
High voltage outdoor insulators are subject to pollution and therefore inevitable deposition of contamination source is a major concern. Periodic cleaning is a necessity in order to prevent permanent loss and reduction of insulation resistance. Considering sever risks operators are facing while cleaning insulators using conventional approaches adapting a robotic system is an innovative approach.
In this dissertation a novel robotic system is developed to clean ceramic suspension insulator string in power transmission line. This robot is installed on insulator string by an operator through tower and is able to autonomously climb down the insulator string while cleaning contaminated insulator units. Dry cleaning approach using brush is used to clean insulator units. The distinguishing features of the purposed robot over existing ones include easier installation, fail safety, higher reliability and simplicity.
In this dissertation first a conceptual design of the robot is presented and then details of mechanism adapted in each subassembly of the robot are specified. The details include cinematic, type of material and mechanical connections between different parts. The weight and volume of the proposed robot are minimum whilst at the same time simple and durable structures are deployed. In order to confirm the design, mechanical force and tension analysis of major parts of the robot is presented.
In the electrical design chapter, robot actuators are selected according to torque and speed. Furthermore, in this chapter, design of robot control hardware including motor drivers, microcontroller, battery and communication system to connect robot with ground station is presented. As the robot is deemed to work in liveline condition, distortions of electric field and potential distribution around the live maintenance robot meandering along an insulator string in power transmission lines is studied. In this study various operating conditions of the robot is investigated in order to discover the most critical condition of the robot in insulator string.
Also, in this dissertation, process steps of robot fabrication is reported and finally experimental results of deploying robot in real working condition of insulator string confirms the effectiveness of the developed robot. The robot requires one minute to climb down/up one unit of insulator and needs another one minute to revolve around insulator string for cleaning the insulator. Therefore for an insulator string of 230 kV power transmission line, consisting 15 units, the robot complete mission duration is 45 minute. Hence for lengthy robot missions a high capacity power storage system is required. However, closeness of the robot to the hot power line provides the opportunity to charge robot batteries by harvesting power from live conductors. In this dissertation, an optimal inductive power harvesting system is presented with maximum efficiency, minimum volume and minimum wieght.
