Gurugram: Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (POWERGRID) has initiated use of drones for EHV (Extra High Voltage) transmission line patrolling to identify defects using high resolution cameras.
Drones are being deployed for activities such as tower inspection, clearance meas-urement & vegetation management. Drones enable effective patrolling of transmis-sion line sections falling under difficult/ unapproachable areas (i.e. valley, hilly, river crossing, flooded areas) as well as areas having right-of-way (RoW) issues etc.
They are also being deployed for disaster management to carry out tasks such as damage assessment/aerial surveys, emergency line patrolling. POWERGRID has also devel-oped an Artificial Intelligence based tool which has automated the defect identification process from photographs captured during drone patrolling.