I am an aerial lineman, and I have been brainstorming a unique method of implementing drones into my industry that surpasses basic aerial inspections. The task involves actually energizing the drone to voltages of up to 500 KV. This is a task that we perform using a helicopter, and I feel that the same principles would be involved and am hoping that the sensitive electronics wouldn't fail when bonding the drone to the conductor....
We as lineman utilize a helicopter to transport us on a "long line" to the energized conductor. We wear a "faraday" suit that is conductive, and as we approach the conductor our suits/body, tools, etc are all energized, bringing us to the same potential as the line we are working on. We can "wire walk" these, remaining in direct contact with them. I've used a go-pro on the wire, my watch, phone, and other types of electronics like meters (sensitive electronics I would assume?) with no real effect to them.
My question is.... does anyone have the experience, or know how to accomplish this task? Allowing a drone to bring itself to equal potential of an energized power line, and still be fully effective? The use of a bonding rod would be ideal, but how would this effect the electronics of the helicopter?
The plan is to use the drone to perform one simple task (that I would rather not share for patent reasons..)... It needs to be able to directly contact the line, auto hover within a foot of the line while energized... and do so without any real interference... Just like a bird on a wire...
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