Multirotor News Link China Wuzhou Bureau completed Guishan’s extensive power line inspection project by using drones

Recently, the Wuzhou Bureau´s UHV power transmission management department successfully completed the one-and-a-half-month period extensive drone inspection of Guishan’s double power line. A total of 767 bases of Guishan jia-yi Lines were inspected. The completion ratio was 100%. The inspection revealed 1129 more major and even way more serious defects, 420 more minor defects. These newly revealed defects were all omitted by previous manual and helicopter inspections. The results of the inspection were very significant. The high level defects which seriously affected the safety of the power lines had been thoroughly discovered at this time, were compiled into a completely new defect booklet, it would provide reliable reference for subsequent accurate defect elimination. MMC’s drones have also played an increasingly important role in power inspections with features of long flight time and 3 proofings.

During the hosttest summertime in July and August, drone pilots were using drones to implement the power line inspection orderly against the scorching heat waves.

It is said that the terrain of the Guishan double line is of complexity. They often carry dozens of kilograms of equipment such as drones, battery boxes, infrared thermometers, and emergency medicine kits. This inspection project requires clear pictures of each hanging point of the tower body. A single-circuit tension power tower needs 100 photos taken, and it takes an hour to inspect in average. The pilot would use a drone equipped with the Thyea Z4 camera for aerial photo taking. Thyea Z40 is a micro-miniature three-axis pan/tilt camera with specs of 12 megapixels, 40x zoom, and function of object tracking. Usually the pilot can inspect about 10 base towers, take a total of more than 1,000 line body photos. After returning to the local station, they had to edit and supervise the defects from the day´s photos for report and summary.

The bureau´s power transmission management department´s extensive inspection project was successfully completed, and won the unanimous praise of many leaders. This inspection project is an all-round and meticulous inspection of the line body, which provides an important reference for the defect eliminating work of this winter and next spring. At the same time, for the larger risky points that may affect the safe and stable operation of the line, the transmission management department will also make defect elimination strategy in the near future, to achieve early detection and early processing. Regardless of the collection of "line channel, equipment body" information, or the reduction of work costs and risks, drones have played an important role. The power transmission management department will further push the refined application of drones in the field of power transmission