Pneumatic Robot Arm for Assisting in Power Line Maintenance

In Japan, the renewal and renovation of power lines, poles, and other electric transmission facilities have increased due to aging. The maintenance of power line is performed by several workers from the bucket of an elevated work vehicle, which involves dangerous and difficult live-line work. In this study, we propose a unique pneumatic robot arm to support this maintenance work. The robot arm has five degrees of freedom, including a telescopic mechanism for approaching power lines. The worker operates this robot arm with various special tools attached to the tip, thereby reducing the burden on the worker. The arm mechanism can be easily insulated and waterproofed using pneumatic drive and is lightweight. The design method for each pneumatic drive joint of the proposed robot arm is demonstrated. Simple control methods of the pneumatic drive are also introduced to improve the robot arm operability. The potential of the prototype robot arm to support power line work is further demonstrated.