Browsing by Author "Mendes, Rui Filipe Loureiro"
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- Desenvolvimento de métodos de inspeção de ativos elétricos recorrendo a um UAV VTOLPublication . Mendes, Rui Filipe Loureiro; Dias, André Miguel PinheiroThe Human Being increasingly depends on electricity for everyday life. The availability of electricity therefore becomes a key factor for any population development. For this, it is necessary that the network is constantly maintained in good condition, through constant inspections, ensuring less failures at any point in the energy transmission chain. Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) it is possible to mitigate current inspection problems, which are the cost of inspection and its associated risk. Equipping a multirotor with relevant sensors and designing inspection maneuvers can solve many of these problems. However, the problem of low aircraft autonomy is raised. A Vertical take-off and landing aircraft (VTOL) consists of a vehicle with characteristics of multirotor and fixed wing, it seeks to exploit the advantages of each, thus mitigating the problem of flight autonomy. A VTOL solution was developed to respond to these problems, potentially capable of inspecting large extensions of high and medium voltage power lines. This solution was also designed to operate autonomously, reducing the need for human intervention. In addition to the developed aircraft, new inspection maneuvers were also investigated and applied to transmission lines. These maneuvers were designed to take advantage of the benefits of a VTOL. Using both conventional multirotor inspection methods and fixed wing inspection maneuvers, it was possible to obtain promising results for future applications. The final result consists of several simulations of the implemented maneuvers and data collection that justify the use of a VTOL for large-scale inspections, all in an autonomous way. Finally, the prototype of an aircraft developed with the characteristics of a VTOL is also presented.