Lidar survey of the power line – Terna S.p.A.
Lidar Point Cloud and Ground mesh
One of the most frequent cause of shut-down in power transmission lines are short circuits caused by vegetation that grew too close to the wires.
It is possible to estimate how much a said plant will grow, however this kind of prediction isn’t 100% accurate.
In the past, the only solutions to the problem were:
- Helicopter: while allowing to inspect dozens of kilometers per day, the high cost of such method of inspection is limiting its usage to the most critical areas;
- Site inspection: having someone that walks down the line can be significatively less expensive that using an helicopter, however this kind of inspection will be limited to a few kilometer per day and will generate less accurate reports.
Using drones equipped with Solid State LiDAR represents a big improvement in efficency.
This technology can cut the costs of helicopter inspections by up to 70% while still be able to deliver high quality data and cover up to 15km per hour.
LiDAR technology can deliver point clouds that can be used to automatically generate reports in each point where an object (both natural or artificial) gets too close to a conductor, making the line owner able to conduct aimed interventions.
Click to view the full point cloud!
