Development of the Insulator Washer robot

Abstract

This is a report on the development of the Insulator Washer-I, a robot designed to wash the insulators for high voltage lines that are installed on steel towers. The Insulator Washer-I is composed of an orbit rail for ascending the steel tower, a cylindrical coordinate type arm mounted on the orbit rail, and a rotating washing unit which, when transported by the orbit cart and attached to the fin of the insulator by the arm, automatically rotates around the insulator and conducts the washing operation with on-board brushes. A new long stroke, light weight mechanism and a "slant wheel drive mechanism", which produces movement with two degrees of freedom, were introduced into the drive system of the arm in order to clean all surfaces of the insulators, which have a height of nearly three meters. Finally, operational experiments were conducted using the Insulator Washer-I, and the results indicated that practical operation is possible.