Conceptual Design and Preliminary Tests of an Autonomous Module for Remote Inspection of Electrical Infrastructures

Nowadays, ensuring the operational reliability of electrical systems is crucial for the safety, efficiency, and continuity of infrastructures. Towards this direction, a module for autonomous and remote inspection of electrical systems is proposed. The module is compact and modular, enabling seamless integration into a wide range of platforms, including robotic systems such as ground rovers and unmanned aerial vehicles, fixed installations on electrical infrastructures, and handheld configurations for manual inspections. Specifically, the module incorporates a set of non-invasive and remote sensors including a microphone, an infrared camera, a conventional camera, an antenna and a magnetometer. It is also equipped with a single-board computer, which is responsible for coordinating the sensors, the management and processing of the acquired data and executing the fault detection and recognition. Additional auxiliary components are integrated into the module to enhance its functionality. These include multiple illumination sources spanning the ultraviolet to infrared spectral regions, as well as distance sensors. The faults concern mainly aging effects and permanent failures of critical electrical components like transformers, relays, electrical machines, and cables. Overall, the present contribution contains: i) a detailed description of the architecture and specification of the components, ii) the system integration, iii) the corresponding computing framework and iv) some preliminary tests of a prototype.