The use of the Travelling Salesman Problem To optimise power line inspections

Frequent inspections of power lines and the associated components is required to ensure quality supply of electricity. Current power line inspection methods such as manned helicopters and ground surveillance crews are expensive and the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has been presented as a cost effective alternative. This paper presents research into the development of a method to optimise the inspection of power lines and associated components using a rotary UAV. The proposed inspection path optimisation is based on the Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP). In defining this problem as a TSP, waypoints are chosen based on their position relative to pylon components that require inspections. These waypoints are then used as cities in the classic TSP which is solved using a Genetic Algorithm. The cities are used in a MATLAB model that has a scaled pylon. The results obtained in simulation show that there is a potential for using the proposed combination of GA and TSP to enable optimal inspections