Comment by akira2501
2 years ago
It's going to be a very costly operation to go retrieve one of those once it's "gripper" ultimately fails. That's hoping it fails closed instead of failing open. Getting these parked in the face of upcoming weather is not going to be particularly fun, either.
Given that you need a solid alternate location anyways, why not just go there instead? Then we can build safe single function autonomous ground charging stations that a human being can just walk up to and service on foot.
Too clever by half.
The application is for drones doing work in the field and needed to recharge on that basis, it's actually a very good solution for coverage of a large, possible remote, area. The alternative is a large number of charging locations which is very expensive.
There's no need for alternate charging or parking in weather. Besides merely going into a hibernating state with a radio beacon and light in emergencies, recovery could be via a vehicle positioned in an optimal location relative to the drones where they can all converge and be collected. In the case of charging limitations you could execute more than one convergence location.
Also the drones could be used to remove failed drones stuck on lines.
Nope, this is fully clever.
I'm suggesting that hanging random amounts of weight off of power lines is probably not a great engineering plan, less so if the wind or heat or load picks up significantly. My concern isn't for the drones it's for the actual power infrastructure.
Are the drones designed for inspection or for heavy lifting and applying mechanical leverage against other objects? Are you so sure they're going to be able to do both?
It's trying to solve two problems at once, and while the solutions individually may be clever, combined they seem like a total waste and fraught with complications.
Really, you're overly negative. Those lines aren't light to begin with, wind and other issues you mention are just basic design considerations. And the important point is there are no good alternatives.
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The lines are far more robust than that. Right now human inspectors are used to crawl the lines for inspection!
https://youtu.be/oBJyyEAw-6g?si=wW71x2tPyDxMuZA0
The weight of a drone, which is already designed to be light for flight efficiency, is not even worth factoring in.
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I mean… who’s to say you aren’t operating these for nefarious purposes and the last thing you want to do is have them go back to a central location? Or if they are part of a defensive perimeter, or a long haul operation, where centralized service is problematic? These could be used for power line infrastructure observation and possibly even repairs at some point.