Intelligent Inspection Robot Research Articles

An Enhanced SL-YOLOv8-Based Lightweight Remote Sensing Detection Algorithm for Identifying Broken Strands in Transmission Lines

Power transmission lines frequently face threats from lightning strikes, severe storms, and chemical corrosion, which can lead to damage in steel–aluminum-stranded wires, thereby seriously affecting the stability of the power system. Currently, manual inspections are relatively inefficient and high risk, while drone inspections are often limited by complex environments and obstacles. Existing detection algorithms still face difficulties in identifying broken strands. To address these issues, this paper proposes a new method called SL-YOLOv8. This method incorporates an improved You Only Look Once version 8 (YOLOv8) algorithm, specifically designed for online intelligent inspection robots to detect broken strands in transmission lines. Transmission lines are susceptible to lightning strikes, storms, and chemical corrosion, which is leading to the potential failure of steel- and aluminum-stranded lines, and significantly impacting the stability of the power system. Currently, manual inspections come with relatively low efficiency and high risk, and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) inspections are hindered by complex situations and obstacles, with current algorithms making it difficult to detect the broken strand lines. This paper proposes SL-YOLOv8, which is a broken transmission line strand detection method for an online intelligent inspection robot combined with an improved You Only Look Once version 8 (YOLOv8). By incorporating the Squeeze-and-Excitation Network version 2 (SENet_v2) into the feature fusion network, the method effectively enhances adaptive feature representation by focusing on and amplifying key information, thereby improving the network’s capability to detect small objects. Additionally, the introduction of the LSKblockAttention module, which combines Large Selective Kernels (LSKs) and the attention mechanism, allows the model to dynamically select and enhance critical features, significantly enhancing detection accuracy and robustness while maintaining model precision. Compared with the original YOLOv8 algorithm, SL-YOLOv8 demonstrates improved precision recognition accuracy in Break-ID-1632 and cable damage datasets. The precision is increased by 3.9% and 2.7%, and the recall is increased by 12.2% and 2.3%, respectively, for the two datasets. The mean average precision (mAP) at the Intersection over Union (IoU) threshold of 0.5 is also increased by 4.9% and 1.2%, showing the SL-YOLOv8’s effectiveness in accurately identifying small objects in complex situations.

Numerical Simulation and Experimental Study of Gas–Solid Two-Phase Spraying of Dry Powder Fire-Extinguishing System Based on Fire-Extinguishing Inspection Robot

In order to solve the problem where the traditional intelligent inspection robot only has a single inspection function, we studied the use of a dry powder (including an ultra-fine dry powder) as a fire-extinguishing medium for the first time. In fire-extinguishing robots, the spray pressure is difficult to control, and there are several other issues. For integrated inspection, an intelligent, nitrogen-driven fire-extinguishing robot using a dry powder in a pressure-controlled spray was developed. On this basis, in order to investigate nitrogen-driven dry powder particle spraying as a gas–solid two-phase mechanism, as well as the flow characteristics and the influence of relevant parameters on the spraying effect, a nitrogen-driven dry powder particle spraying system was established as part of a gas–solid two-phase computational fluid dynamics model. The flow field of the spraying system and the particle motion characteristics were analyzed to explore the micro-mechanisms of the influence of different driving pressures, pipe diameters, and nozzle configurations on the spraying of the dry powder. In order to investigate the macroscopic effect of dry powder spraying where the gas–solid two-phase micro-mechanisms could not be revealed, an experimental platform was set up, and the experiments verified the accuracy of the numerical simulation results. We also investigated the dry powder spraying effect under different driving pressures, pipe diameters, nozzle configurations, and loading ratios. Finally, an orthogonal test was designed based on the results of the single-factor experiments to find the best combination of parameters required to achieve the optimal spraying effect. The research results can provide a theoretical and technical reference for the design and development of nitrogen-driven dry powder spraying systems.

Multi-scene application of intelligent inspection robot based on computer vision in power plant

As industries develop, the automation and intelligence level of power plants is constantly improving, and the application of patrol robots is also increasingly widespread. This research combines computer vision technology and particle swarm optimization algorithm to build an obstacle recognition model and obstacle avoidance model of an intelligent patrol robot in a power plant respectively. Firstly, the traditional convolutional recurrent neural network is optimized, and the obstacle recognition model of an intelligent patrol robot is built by combining the connection timing classification algorithm. Then, the artificial potential field method optimizes the traditional particle swarm optimization algorithm, and an obstacle avoidance model of an intelligent patrol robot is built. The performance of the two models was tested, and it was found that the highest precision, recall, and F1 values of the identification model were 0.978, 0.974, and 0.975. The highest precision, recall, and F1 values of the obstacle avoidance model were 0.97, 0.96, and 0.96 respectively. The two optimization models designed in this research have better performance. In conclusion, the two models in this study are superior to the traditional methods in recognition effect and obstacle avoidance efficiency, providing an effective technical scheme for intelligent patrol inspection of power plants.

Gaussian process regression based inspection robot for predicting and locating pipeline anticorrosion coating defects

The direct current voltage gradient (DCVG) technology is adept at identifying defects and corrosion issues within the anti-corrosion layer of buried pipelines by measuring changes in voltage gradient above the ground. Its widespread adoption in the field of anti-corrosion layer defect detection for its high precision and accuracy. However, the current DCVG inspection process relies on experienced operators holding electrodes to walk along the pipeline, resulting in a huge workload. To address these challenges, this paper proposes an innovative method that combines Gaussian process regression (GPR) with an intelligent inspection robot for autonomous pipeline anti-corrosion coating defect detection. This method uses environmental data to directly predict the location of defects within a pipeline’s anti-corrosion coating. Through incremental learning, the GPR model is trained to be continuously updated based on new samples such as position coordinates and voltage measurements during autonomous inspections. In addition, the intelligent inspection robot operates collaboratively with crawler wheels and UR robotic arms, enhancing motion stability and flexibility in expanding training data sets. Experimental results confirm that the intelligent inspection robot driven by Gaussian process prediction can achieve accurate defect positioning within 25 iteration cycles, with a positioning accuracy within 0.12 m. This method enhances defect detection accuracy, alleviating operator burden and offering an efficient solution for buried pipeline maintenance.

Integrative Approach for High-Speed Road Surface Monitoring: A Convergence of Robotics, Edge Computing, and Advanced Object Detection

To ensure precise and real-time perception of high-speed roadway conditions and minimize the potential threats to traffic safety posed by road debris and defects, this study designed a real-time monitoring and early warning system for high-speed road surface anomalies. Initially, an autonomous mobile intelligent road inspection robot, mountable on highway guardrails, along with a corresponding cloud-based warning platform, was developed. Subsequently, an enhanced target detection algorithm, YOLOv5s-L-OTA, was proposed. Incorporating GSConv for lightweight improvements to standard convolutions and employing the optimal transport assignment for object detection (OTA) strategy, the algorithm’s robustness in multi-object label assignment was enhanced, significantly improving both model accuracy and processing speed. Ultimately, this refined algorithm was deployed on the intelligent inspection robot and validated in real-road environments. The experimental results demonstrated the algorithm’s effectiveness, significantly boosting the capability for real-time, precise detection of high-speed road surface anomalies, thereby ensuring highway safety and substantially reducing the risk of liability disputes and personal injuries.

A Small Object Detection Method for Oil Leakage Defects in Substations Based on Improved Faster-RCNN.

Since substations are key parts of power transmission, ensuring the safety of substations involves monitoring whether the substation equipment is in a normal state. Oil leakage detection is one of the necessary daily tasks of substation inspection robots, which can immediately find out whether there is oil leakage in the equipment in operation so as to ensure the service life of the equipment and maintain the safe and stable operation of the system. At present, there are still some challenges in oil leakage detection in substation equipment: there is a lack of a more accurate method of detecting oil leakage in small objects, and there is no combination of intelligent inspection robots to assist substation inspection workers in judging oil leakage accidents. To address these issues, this paper proposes a small object detection method for oil leakage defects in substations. This paper proposes a small object detection method for oil leakage defects in substations, which is based on the feature extraction network Resnet-101 of the Faster-RCNN model for improvement. In order to decrease the loss of information in the original image, especially for small objects, this method is developed by canceling the downsampling operation and replacing the large convolutional kernel with a small convolutional kernel. In addition, the method proposed in this paper is combined with an intelligent inspection robot, and an oil leakage decision-making scheme is designed, which can provide substation equipment oil leakage maintenance recommendations for substation workers to deal with oil leakage accidents. Finally, the experimental validation of real substation oil leakage image collection is carried out by the intelligent inspection robot equipped with a camera. The experimental results show that the proposed FRRNet101-c model in this paper has the best performance for oil leakage detection in substation equipment compared with several baseline models, improving the Mean Average Precision (mAP) by 6.3%, especially in detecting small objects, which has improved by 12%.

Retracted: Active Compliance Control System for Intelligent Inspection Robot in Power Room

Retracted: Active Compliance Control System for Intelligent Inspection Robot in Power Room

Target Tracking Method for Transmission Line Moving Operation Based on Inspection Robot and Edge Computing

Aiming at the problems of low accuracy and high loss rate when the traditional target tracking (TT) method is applied to the TT of the moving operation of the transmission line, a transmission line based on an inspection robot and edge computing (EC) is proposed: the mobile job TT method. First, the basic framework of the TT algorithm is proposed, relying on the edge device to develop the TT system for mobile operations on the transmission line. Video information is collected by an intelligent inspection robot and sent to the target tracking system in the edge device for processing to obtain accurate data. Then, the gradient disappearance and explosion problems caused by the increase of network depth are solved by using the deep residual network. The traditional deep residual network is improved by introducing the improved bidirectional feature reinforcement network and the classification and regression subnet. The loss of position texture information is remedied, and the accurate tracking of the moving target on transmission line is realized. Finally, the real-time data acquisition of mobile operation target is realized by using an intelligent inspection robot, and the experimental verification is conducted. The proposed algorithm is compared and analyzed against the three other algorithms using the same data set through simulation experiments. The results show the precision, recall rate, accuracy, and comprehensive evaluation index F1 value of the proposed algorithm rank highest, reaching 93.8%, 90.2%, 83.8%, and 89.8%, respectively, compared with the other algorithms.

Research on the Positioning and Recognition of an Intelligent Inspection Robot in Substations

The substation inspection robot follows the set path when working autonomously, and accurate positioning of the robot while moving is required to ensure that the route does not deviate. This study briefly introduces a substation inspection robot, an odometer-based positioning algorithm, radio frequency identification (RFID), and a machine vision-based positioning algorithm, and improves the former algorithm by RFID. Subsequently, the three positioning algorithms were compared. The results showed that the RFID+machine vision-based positioning algorithm exhibited the highest accuracy among the three algorithms tested under the same cycle number, and its positioning error remained stable as the cycle number increased.

An Intelligent Inspection Robot for Underground Cable Trenches Based on Adaptive 2D-SLAM

With the rapid growth of underground cable trenches, the corresponding inspections become a heavy burden, and an intelligent inspection robot for automatic examinations in underground cable trenches would be a suitable solution. To achieve this, this paper establishes one new navigation methodology for intelligent inspection robots, especially when applied in complex scenarios and the corresponding hardware. Firstly, to map the underground trenches with higher precision, an improved graph optimization cartographer-SLAM algorithm is proposed, which is based on the combination of depth camera and LIDAR. The depth image is converted into pseudo laser data, and fused with LIDAR data for calibration. Secondly, to overcome the low precision of the Laser odometer due to the uneven ground, an adaptive keyframe selection method is designed. Thirdly, the forward A* model is presented, which has been adjusted in three aspects, including the convergence of node searching, the cost function, and the path smoothness, to adapt to the narrow underground environment for global path planning. Fourthly, to realize dynamic obstacle avoidance, an improved fusion scheme is built to integrate the proposed global path planning algorithm and the dynamic window approach (DWA). In the case study, the simulation experiments showed the advantage of the forward A* algorithm over the state-of-the-art algorithm in both time consumption and the number of inflection points generated, the field tests illustrated the effect of the fusion of depth camera images and LIDAR. Hence, the feasibility of this navigation methodology can be verified, and the average length of path and time consumption decreased by 6.5% and 17.8%, respectively, compared with the traditional methods.

Remote Wind Farm Path Planning for Patrol Robot Based on the Hybrid Optimization Algorithm

Globally, wind power plays a leading role in the renewable energy industry. In order to ensure the normal operation of a wind farm, the staff will regularly check the equipment of the wind farm. However, manual inspection has some disadvantages, such as heavy workload, low efficiency and easy misjudgment. In order to realize automation, intelligence and high efficiency of inspection work, inspection robots are introduced into wind farms to replace manual inspections. Path planning is the prerequisite for an intelligent inspection robot to complete inspection tasks. In order to ensure that the robot can take the shortest path in the inspection process and avoid the detected obstacles at the same time, a new path-planning algorithm is proposed. The path-planning algorithm is based on the chaotic neural network and genetic algorithm. First, the chaotic neural network is used for the first step of path planning. The planning results are encoded into chromosomes to replace the individuals with the worst fitness in the genetic algorithm population. Then, according to the principle of survival of the fittest, the population is selected, hybridized, varied and guided to cyclic evolution to obtain the new path. The shortest path obtained by the algorithm can be used for the robot inspection of the wind farms in remote areas. The results show that the proposed new algorithm can generate a shorter inspection path than other algorithms.

Active Compliance Control System for Intelligent Inspection Robot in Power Room

In order to solve the problems of blind spot and time-consuming and laborious monitoring in manual inspection of power information and communication rooms, a kind of active compliant control system for intelligent inspection robots of power information and communication rooms is proposed. This research includes the noncontact detection method of the inspection robot in the power room based on machine vision; the optimization environment of the power room; the control of the inspection robot through the monitoring system terminal; the automatic visual inspection of the machine through the monitoring network transmission; the display of the monitoring terminal and the use of the calibration of the machine; and the edge detection method of the inspection image. The motion model of the inspection robot in the power room is constructed and the compliant control method of the inspection robot is designed. The experimental results show that the ineffective fluctuation range of torque of each joint is the smallest when the inspection robot is disturbed by obstacles in the process of executing signal change instructions, and the average fluctuation range of robot limbs is 0.65%. Conclusion. Based on the research results of this essay, it is proved that the controllability of power signal lamp change can be optimized separately in the future, and the safety of circuit operation can be improved.

Multi-source fusion of substation intelligent inspection robot based on knowledge graph: A overview and roadmap

As the core part of the power grid, the substation must carry out regular patrol inspection to ensure the normal operation of the equipment. In recent years, with the continuous increase of load, the area of the substation has gradually expanded, which makes its operating environment more complex, the intensity of patrol inspection has increased, and the manual patrol inspection method cannot meet the needs of patrol inspection. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce high-tech equipment and use patrol inspection robots to conduct regular patrol inspection, which inevitably leads to a large number of different working environments with matching standards and regulations for different equipment. In order to facilitate the staff to implement the delivery of robots matching the standards for the projects in the corresponding actual environment, the concept of knowledge atlas has been introduced and revolutionarily applied to the multi-source fusion of substation patrol robots, which not only more clearly analyzes the relationship between multi-source data, which can also make the operation and application in practical projects more convenient. This paper creatively uses the method of knowledge graph to summarize and analyze the multi-source fusion data of the field patrol robot in different working environments of a substation in Southwest China, and provides the research direction of this field and a one-stop manual for potential researchers and engineers in the future.

Application of Intelligent Inspection Robot in Coal Mine Industrial Heritage Landscape: Taking Wangshiwa Coal Mine as an Example.

This study is developed to explore the role of intelligent inspection robot in the protection and utilization of coal mine industrial heritage. Based on the actual situation of the coal mine, the underground planning protection scope is analyzed. Aiming at the problems of imperfect fire early warning detection technology, management mechanism, high labor cost and low work efficiency in underground protection, the intelligent inspection robot technology is proposed to realize safety tour, underground intelligent management and early warning of underground security, fire protection facilities construction, and intelligent early warning system. This paper analyzes the key technology of intelligent inspection robot in coal mine industrial heritage protection, introduces the composition, structure and implementation method, and proposes its construction path and method. Besides, the path planning, motion obstacle avoidance and sensing detection of the robot are studied. The research shows that the intelligent inspection robot has comprehensive functions and stable performance, and can realize the scientific, intelligent and refined management of industrial heritage protection, which provides a guiding basis for the intelligent protection of coal mine industrial heritage.

Design and Implementation of Ultrasonic Gas Leakage Locating System

The leakage of dangerous gas at the gas station may cause explosions and other serious accidents, threatening the safety of workers. This paper designs and implements a gas leakage locating device based on ultrasonic technique. The device can communicate with an intelligent inspection robot which alarms the gas leakage in real time and tracks the leaking sources. This paper first builds a hardware platform, and then realizes a four-channel signal based leak location algorithm by combining decision tree and neural network algorithm of smoothing pre-treatment. Finally, each software module of the gas leak location device is constructed. Testing of the locating capability of the device was completed in practical working environment.

Investigation of Intelligent Substation Inspection Robot by Using Mobile Data

Substation equipment inspection is essential for the power industry. The expansion of the smart grid scale improves the transmission capacity and enhances the likelihood of power plant facilities failure. To ensure the safety of the electric power supply, it is essential to inspect substation equipment. Metal commercial equipment can be traversed by remote inspection robots equipped with magnetic wheels. It is possible to use robots like this to examine equipment and pipelines remotely. In many cases, these gadgets are able to scale vertical surfaces and even traverse obstacles with a variety of shapes. Finally, researchers in the field of robotics have indicated that challenges such as restricted onboard battery capacity, undependable line fault detection, electrical insulation, power mechanism, and advanced control techniques for outer wind disruption are highly promising research areas. To build an unmanned, intelligent, and succeeded substation, the substation progressively implements inspection robots instead of physical exertion. Hence, in this paper, the mobile-based Intelligent Tracking Framework (MITF) has been proposed using inspection robots. This inspection robot is autonomous and can be used for various tracking tools: visual, infrared, and partial charge–discharge camera. The robot is integrated with a camera and thermal infrared imager sensors that have been collectively designated as workload. These inspection sensors are used to detect environmental parameters such as reading meters, evaluation thermoelectric temperature. The accurate localization of working loads and the inspection robot electromagnetic interference within substations have been resolved. This mobile robot delivers innovative monitoring and precise detection for the unmanned substation and smart substation. The suggested approach’s effectiveness is verified through experiment results based on the electrical equipment of the substation. The experimental outcome of the proposed method boosts the Meter Reading Analysis (94.19%), Transmission Capacity Analysis (98.5%), Workload Analysis (98.9%), Temperature Analysis (97.6%), and Safety Analysis (95.41%).

Condition Assessment of the Cable Trench Based on an Intelligent Inspection Robot

Accurate evaluation of the cable trench condition is the key to realizing its intelligent operation and maintenance, and the intelligent cable trench inspection robot is a reliable information acquisition method for the condition assessment of cable trench. According to task requirements and site’s environment, an intelligent inspection robot is designed. The crawler-type motion mechanism is determined based on the demand for sizes and obstacle-surmounting. Cartographer SLAM technology is used to map the underground cable trench environment, and a path planning method combined with the improved A∗ algorithm and dynamic window method (DWA) is presented. Multiple sensors are equipped on this robot, and various kinds of information are obtained. Based on the information obtained, a condition assessment method of an underground cable trench is proposed. An extension neural network model is constructed to assess air quality. Channel capacity and ground flatness are calculated to evaluate the internal structure of the cable trench. The water depth and water surface area are comprehensively used to evaluate the hazard of water accumulation. The evaluation results are used to realize the linkage control of the cable trench’s operation and maintenance. A field test shows that the intelligent inspection robot can reliably obtain seven kinds of information from the underground cable trench, and the proposed condition evaluation method can assess the condition of the cable trench and provide four kinds of suggestions for potential hazards.

Research on Fault Detection Algorithm of Electrical Equipment Based on Neural Network

With the rapid development of China’s electrical industry, the safe operation of electrical facilities is very important for social stability and people’s property safety. The failure detection method of conventional electrical equipment is hand detection, which has high experience of the detection person, lacks detection and error detection, and the detection efficiency is low. With the development of artificial intelligence technology, computer-assisted substation inspection is now possible, and substation inspection using an intelligent inspection robot equipped with an infrared device is one of the main substation inspection methods. In this paper, experiments are carried out using several neural network models. For example, if a faster region convolutional neural networks (RCNN) infrared detection model is employed, a good vg16 in the feature region of the extracted image takes into account the quality of the infrared image and the presence of multiple devices. Infrared images can be used to determine the basic features of various electronic devices. In order to detect targets in infrared images of electrical equipment, the fast RCNN target detection algorithm is used, and the overall recognition accuracy reaches 83.1%, and a good application effect is obtained.

A Design of Intelligent House Inspection Robot

A Design of Intelligent House Inspection Robot

Pointer-type instrument positioning method of intelligent inspection system for substation

Robot intelligent inspection is widely used in the positioning of various pointer instruments in power, petroleum, chemical, and other industries. Aiming at the technical problems of poor adaptability, poor real-time performance, and low positioning accuracy of the pointer instrument positioning method in the existing substation intelligent inspection robot system, we propose a simple and effective pointer instrument positioning detection algorithm. The algorithm first extracts locally adaptive regression kernels (LARK) features of the input image, and the dimension of the LARK feature is reduced using the principal components analysis algorithm. Then, the template image is slid in the input image, the cosine similarity is used as an evaluation index, and the Fourier transform is used to accelerate the convolution operation in the cosine similarity calculation. Finally, the accelerated-KAZE algorithm is used to extract the feature points of the pointer-type instrument area image and the template image, and the statistical method of grid motion was used to eliminate the wrong matching points. The remaining matching points were processed by random sample consensus algorithm, and the homography matrix was obtained. The image registration was completed by the homography matrix, and the pointer-type instrument region positioning was realized. The experimental results show that the proposed method has good adaptability, strong real-time performance, and high accuracy of pointer-type instrument positioning.