Assessing wind impact on semi-autonomous drone landings for in-contact power-line inspection

Abstract

In recent years, the use of inspection drones has become increasingly popular for high-voltage electric cable inspections due to their efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and ability to access hard-to-reach areas. However, safely landing drones on power lines, especially under windy conditions, remains a significant challenge. This study introduces a semi-autonomous control scheme for landing on an electrical line with the NADILE drone (an experimental drone based on original LineDrone key features for inspection of power lines) and assesses the operating envelope under various wind conditions. A Monte Carlo method is employed to analyze the success probability of landing given initial drone states. The system’s performance is assessed by testing two landing strategies, adjusting controller parameters, and considering four different levels of wind intensity. The results show that a two-stage landing strategy offers higher probabilities of landing success and gives insight regarding the best controller parameters and the maximum wind level for which the system is robust. Finally, an experimental demonstration of the system landing autonomously on a power line is presented.

Keywords

• unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
• power-line inspection
• high-voltage cable inspection
• Monte Carlo simulation
• wind conditions
• landing envelope