ALBATROZ ENGINEERING INTEGRATES LIDAR MEASUREMENTS WITH APPLUS INSPECTION ROUTINE

Date: 2009-03-24

Location: Madrid, Spain

Power Line Maintenance Inspection [PLMI]

Madrid, March 24^th, 2009

Applus Norcontrol, a company of Applus Corporation (www.applus.com) and Albatroz Engineering (www.albatroz-eng.com) inform on their collaboration to integrate a LiDAR-based distance measurement system with the Applus inspection systems: Búho, used on the inspection of high voltage and very high voltage over-head lines and Linze, used on the inspection of medium voltage over-head lines.

El módulo de medida de distancias será creado a partir del sistema Power Line Maintenance Inspection [PLMI] de Albatroz Ingeniería que integra otras funciones de inspección. Las características de este producto permiten su integración con ambos sistemas (Búho y Linze), sin necesitar de otras modificaciones que la instalación del nuevo componente en el externo del helicóptero de inspección y la conexión de energía y datos.

The LiDAR module of PLMI acquires laser data, video images and position, attitude and heading estimates to determine automatically and in real time the location of the over-head lines to be inspected and the hazardous obstaclous in the surroundings. This represents a valuable tool in the effort to enhance quality of service rendered by utilities to their clients while minimizing the hazards to the environment and people around the lines.

The quantitative geo-referenced reports contribute to optimise the vegetation maintenance work, including how much it is necessary to trim or cut and planning the assignments months ahead of schedule. Moreover, in case of outstanding emergencies, the system performs real time measurement and detection of obstacles for immediate action.

Images from trials on a 45kV overhead line in the province of Valladolid, España

LiDAR scan sequence processed in real time

Video images synchronised with the LiDAR processing above

Both companies expect the collaboration to be successful so that the scope of the current project will be eventualy widened to inclued three-dimension models of the track around the line and to set up other projects such as integrated databases for asset management and geographic information systems.