Design and application of insulation skin wrapping robot for overhead distribution line

Overhead distribution lines are widely distributed and the environment is complex. At present, most of the overhead distribution lines in urban–rural fringe and rural areas are bare lines. These lines are susceptible to contact with tree barriers, airborne objects, and construction machinery, resulting in safety problems, such as tripping accidents and casualties caused by electric shock. In order to solve the hidden safety problems of bare lines, an insulation skin-wrapping robot for the overhead bare lines is designed and proposed innovatively in this paper. The mechanical system and the control system of the robot are designed and analyzed in detail. In order to detect whether the insulation skin is wrapped successfully, the robot uses machine vision technology to automatically detect the wrapping effect. In the experiments and engineering applications, the proposed robot is applied to the experimental line and 10 kV overhead distribution line. The results demonstrate the feasibility and practicability of the robot in insulation skin wrapping.