Robot has taken place of men to monitor electricity grid in east China's Shandong Province, scientists announced Friday, just after it passed a 10-day test of monitoring a 500,000 volts transformer substation.
The four-wheeled robot, developed by the Shandong Electricity Power Research Center, is the country's first robot to have been used to carry out surveillance missions close to strong magnetic fields of hyper-tension transformer substations, scientists with the center said.
Technologies of computer, automation, machinery, electronics, remote infrared imaging, visual and audio sensing were involved in the course of developing the robot, they said.
It is also the first time in the world that an intelligentized, movable robot was used for transformer substations surveillance, they stressed.
In China, facilities of transformer substations have long been monitored only by men, whose safety was put to risk under high-tension grip and severe weather.
Scientists with the Shandong center said the robot they developed was able to complete all the work formerly done by grip surveillance workers all by itself or to carry out commands set by the workers.
The robot could immediately detect heat exhaustion, or any foreign body hanging on the grip, they said, adding that "it is nothing less than a professional worker."
After the technology is further polished, the robot is likely to be put in mass production, the Shandong Power Group said.
(Xinhua News Agency November 7, 2005)
