Sensor Network for Monitoring the State of Pollution of High-Voltage Insulators Via Satellite

This paper describes the design and development of a sensor system network for remote monitoring of the state of pollution on high-voltage insulators, its deployment among four states in Northeast Brazil and preliminary analysis of the data gathered by the system. Six monitoring units, each composed by leakage current, humidity, and temperature sensors, an electronic processing module, and a satellite-communication link, were built and installed on 230- and 500-kV transmission towers. Measured data are sent by the different systems via satellite to a database controlled by a web-based graphical user interface, incorporated into the supervision-management system of the electric utility company. Sample field results on one of the sensor systems, both for short- and long-term measurements, show a direct correlation of the activity recorded by the system with the pollution level expected to occur near the corresponding monitoring point.