Robots to support the electric transmission line, able to overcome obstacles: analysis of the current state and challenges

Inspection and maintenance of power lines are already taking advantage of developments in the field of mobile robotics. This document provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of the art. It focuses on mobile robots designed to overcome the obstacles found on a typical transmission line, using the conductor as a travel support. Promising areas of research and development are discussed, as well as problems that have yet to be solved, with the aim of developing fully autonomous technologies. Maintenance tasks, including inspection and repair, are identified as valuable real-time transmission applications. Based on the experience gained, conclusions are drawn and the future of mobile robotics used to service power lines is discussed.