State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power CO. LTD.: 'Vehicle-mounted Drone' Successfully Tested in Lishui, Enhancing Inspection Quality and Efficiency

On June 17, Zeng Yonglin, an employee of State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power CO. LTD., launched the ‘vehicle-mounted drone’ smart inspection equipment in the Tianbuyang Industrial Park in Lishui. A few seconds later, the ‘hatch door’ on the roof opened, and the drone flew out of the nest, starting an automated intelligent inspection of power grid lines according to the planned route.

This equipment is a new type of smart inspection device modified from a conventional repair vehicle, with a foldable box-designed drone smart nest placed on the roof. As a ‘docking station’ for drones, the nest, combined with the company’s drone management platform, can perform operations such as precise takeoff and landing, multi-drone collaborative control, and remote command. It can also transmit drone inspection data in real time and process defects by intelligent identification, featuring flexible deployment, precise positioning, and efficient operation. In terms of work, the person is in the car, with the drone in the air. As long as the route is planned in advance, the drone can patrol along the specific route, recording the state of various scenes and identifying some anomalies.

To solve the problems like insufficient line operation and maintenance, low quality and efficiency of drone inspections in the past, State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power C   O. LTD. tested the ‘vehicle-mounted drone’ in Lishui which can be allowed to ‘live’ in a ‘dedicated room’, so as to achieve a full-process rapid response of ‘fly, transmit, and calculate’, and multi-drone collaborative operations. Compared with traditional drone inspections, it only needs one employee to drive the drone mobile nest to the drone flight point, and the inspection task can be easily executed with one click, with the device status information and inspection video footage transmitted back to the drone management platform in real time. Unlike ordinary drone airports, the ‘vehicle-mounted drone’ can move with the command vehicle, enabling the inspection to be not constrained by location and environment and become more convenient and fast.

In addition, employees without experience in drone piloting can also complete high-quality drone inspection, which can greatly lower the application threshold for drones. Moreover, multi-drone collaborative operations can also improve the efficiency of drone intelligent inspections.

‘When we conducted traditional drone inspections before, each person could only inspect 15 to 20 towers per day, and it would take another half a day to process the data after the inspection. Now, the new equipment can achieve simultaneous operation of three drones, with full-process remote operation, and each person can inspect 100 to 125 towers per day, with the overall efficiency increased by nearly 10 times.’ The staff introduced that based on the long-distance and high-frequency operation of power inspections, the ‘vehicle-mounted drone’ can play its unique and important role in power inspections. (Hu Qian)