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The only way to do it with less risk would be to shut down the line, which would be tremendously expensive and might still result in more risk, since power outa
by mikeash 8y ago
The only way to do it with less risk would be to shut down the line, which would be tremendously expensive and might still result in more risk, since power outages can kill.
It doesn’t look like the safest job in the world, but a lot of crazy-looking things can be reduced to tolerable levels of risk with lots of training and good, methodical procedures.
After all, packing a couple hundred people into a pressurized tube six miles above the ground is pretty crazy too, and used to be fairly dangerous, but these days it’s the safest way to get from A to B.
- orbital-decay 8y agoAFAIK many crawler robots can place shunts on live lines automatically, without any risk. I wonder what's the advantage of doing it manually from a helicopter.
- mikeash 8y agoHow do you get the robots onto the line, and how far can they travel? They might not be capable of handling a sudden problem in a remote area. Although I really don't know, as I just learned of their existence from your comment!
- orbital-decay 8y agoThose I know of are advertised as semi-autonomous and capable to move over any distance for days or weeks; the line provides both power and communications. Robots are put there in a traditional way, by line workers climbing the towers, then the operator controls them remotely if needed. Some models also appear to have a winch for the tools and spare parts if a problem is found. I have no idea if they work as well as advertised though, hence the question. I've seen those things crawling along a nearby power line a couple times, although these particular ones seemed too small to be able to do anything besides inspecting the line with a camera/sensors. I'm not in the US though, things are different here, we don't use aerial transport on every occasion. EDIT: on a further inspection, the robots seem to have issues with crawling over more complex line sections, and are used mainly on very high voltage lines. Apparently, the tech is still in its infancy.
- dfox 8y agoOne pretty significant application 15 years ago of crawler robots (and the only one I've seen in person) was suspending optical fiber cables on the ground cables of VHV lines.