I am excited to announce that the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) will be bringing two of their industry research robots, Ti and Scotty, to the Utility Products Conf. and Expo (UPCE) in San Antonio next January. (UPCE runs in conjunction with the largest smart grid conference in the U.S., DistribuTECH.)
EPRI's transmission line inspection robot is the one nicknamed “Ti" (see artist's sketch of Ti above). Ti can be permanently installed and cover about 80 miles of line a couple of times each year as it “crawls” along the line identifying numerous issues from grass and trees too close to the right-of-way to just how components along the line are weathering the wilds. He moves along on a shield wire and dodges obstacles like marker balls by using bypasses installed along the line. Ti can automatically unhook itself from the shield wire, transfer to the bypass, navigate around the marker and then return itself to the shield wire.
The prototype of Ti is being tested and refined at the Lenox, Mass. EPRI lab. Right now, he’s equipped with high definition and infrared cameras and can even be rigged up with light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors. Ti’s job is to pass along information to the utility about what’s going on along the line, along with specific location information that comes from his handy global positioning system.
Ti will also reach out—electronically, at least—to UPCE attendees and give a visual presentation at the show, complete with data transferred back to EPRI's booth inside the co-located DistribuTECH show floor. Ti will, in fact, be hanging from the ceiling of the combined show floor. So, when you visit the floor, make sure to take a good look up.
American Electric Power will partner with EPRI on a first field implementation of Ti. The utility’s engineers are planning to include Ti and his systems in a 765kV line to be built in 2014.
EPRI's second robot to visit UPCE, Scotty, measures street lighting. Today, high-intensity discharge (HID) lighting, such as high-pressure sodium and metal-halide lamps, prevails when it comes to illuminating streets, parking lots and walkways. But high-power light-emitting diodes (LEDs) promise a brighter future in outdoor illumination. Their capacity to send a more pleasing light in one direction makes them an ideal candidate to replace conventional outdoor lighting. Since 2009, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has been conducting an LED Energy Efficiency Demonstration. The goal of the project is to discover a better light bulb, one that not only meets the outdoor lighting requirements of consumers but also uses less electricity in doing so. There are a number of reasons for exploring new LED technology for this application, including costs and the low efficiency of HID fixtures.
EPRI is conducting assessments of LED-based street and area lights at over 20 sites within the United States. The assessments require accurate, repeatable and timely measurements of light levels. Existing test methods require hand-held meters and are time-consuming, of limited accuracy and require manual recording of data. EPRI developed a solution for this measurement challenge. That solution is a remote controlled and highly instrumented roving light measurement vehicle known as “Scotty.”
Scotty will demonstrate his lighting measurement skills in a roving display at the outdoor UPCE demonstration area during UPCE 2012 in San Antonio.
To learn more about the combined UPCE/DistribuTECH conference in San Antonio, visit: http://www.utilityproductsexpo.com/ or http://www.distributech.com/.
And keep an eye out for more information---including demonstration times for Ti and Scotty---that will come along as we get closer to the show.
I hope you plan to come join us in witnessing this very positive robot invasion.
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