A mobile robot for inspection of substation equipments

Substation inspection has already benefited from developments in mobile robotics. Since 2002, over 10 substation inspection robots have been developed at Shandong Electric Power Institute. These robots carry visible light cameras and infrared thermographs which are used to detect invaders and equipments fault respectively. They move inside the substation and position for collecting images of possible critical points. This paper presents a review of some key techniques of these robots, such as autonomous navigation, autonomous battery charging and autonomous equipment recognition.