Development of cleaning robot system for live-line suspension insulator strings

A new cleaning robot system for suspension insulator strings was developed to prevent a power failure, which can have severe effects on the national industry and economy. Compared with existing cleaning robots using jets of water or water/air, this robot mechanism is superior in insulation as it uses a porcelain-clamping method, and is more useful in mountainous or salt damage areas by adopting a dry cleaning method without water. In addition, in order to increase its cleaning efficiency and to prevent arc generation under live-line conditions, a set of mechanized brush bristles and a voltage-balancing contactor are devised, respectively. Moreover, a manual device for its installation and removal is presented. We confirmed its effectiveness through experiments. Recommended by Editorial Board member Hyoukryeol Choi under the direction of Editor Jae-Bok Song. This work was supported by Electric Power Industry R&D Project performed by Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy in Korea. Joon-Young Park received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1995, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in 1997 and 2004, respectively. He is now a Senior Researcher at the Strategic Technology Laboratory in Korea Electric Power Research Institute (KEPRI). His research interests include the robust control of nonlinear systems, the optimum kinematic design of robot manipulators as well as robot systems for the electric power industry. Byung-Hak Cho received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea, in 1982, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Nuclear Engineering from KAIST, Daejeon, Korea, in 1986 and 1996, respectively. He is now a Chief Researcher at the Strategic Tech-nology Laboratory in KEPRI, Daejeon, Korea. His research interests include robot systems for the electric power industry. Seung-Hyun Byun received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, in 1992, and the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from KAIST, Daejeon, Korea, in 1994. He is now a Senior Researcher at the Power Generation Laboratory in KEPRI, Daejeon, Korea. His research interests include control system design, signal processing and artificial intelligence. Jae-Kyung Lee received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea, in 2002, and M.S. the degree in Electrical Engineering from KAIST, Daejeon, Korea, in 2004. He is now a Researcher at the Strategic Technology Laboratory in KEPRI, Daejeon, Korea. His research interests include the development of high-performance robot control and hazardous robot systems.