China: unmanned drones deployed to inspect power lines
shahennews
About 2,000 unmanned drones have been deployed in east China’s Jiangsu Province for automatic transmission line inspections, according to local official sources.
With an average of 2.5 drones covering every 100 km of power lines, the economic powerhouse currently has all of its key transmission lines being inspected by the drones, a statement by the Chinese Grid Jiangsu Electric Power Co. said on Thursday.
“Based on the holographic power grid statistics, the drones can fulfill functions such as automatic route planning and real-time monitoring,” said Wang Hongxing of the company, noting that Jiangsu’s holographic power grid has now included 32,000 km of transmission lines.
The drones, he added, are equipped with centimeter-level high-precision positioning and millimeter-level image recognition capabilities, with efficiency about six times that of traditional manual inspection.
//Petra// RZ
