A team led by Javad Mohammadpour, an assistant professor of electrical engineering, has designed, prototyped and tested a robot that can glide along electrical lines, searching for problems or performing routine maintenance.<\/p>\n
The self-propelled robot looks like a miniature cable car and is approximately the size of a coffee maker\u2014much smaller and lighter than similar devices now used by utility companies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a tool that\u2019s small enough for a single utility worker to pack in a truck or van and use daily,\u201d Mohammadpour said. \u201cSome of the robots currently in use weigh 200 to 300 pounds while our robot is only 20 to 25 pounds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Equipped with a spinning brush, the robot can clear utility lines of vegetation, bird droppings, salt deposits\u2014a problem particular to coastal areas\u2014or other debris that may degrade the line.<\/p>\n
It also has an onboard camera that allows crews to closely inspect potential problem areas. The robot is wireless and can be controlled by a smartphone, tablet or laptop.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A robot invented by researchers in UGA\u2019s College of Engineering could change the way power lines are inspected\u2014providing a safer and more cost-effective alternative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":17301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[215],"tags":[],"post_medium":[314],"publications":[],"authors":[],"photographers":[],"video_credit":[],"takeaways":[],"class_list":["post-17300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engineering","post_medium-read","entry"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17300"},{"taxonomy":"post_medium","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_medium?post=17300"},{"taxonomy":"publications","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publications?post=17300"},{"taxonomy":"authors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/authors?post=17300"},{"taxonomy":"photographers","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/photographers?post=17300"},{"taxonomy":"video_credit","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/video_credit?post=17300"},{"taxonomy":"takeaways","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/takeaways?post=17300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}