Development of an Unmanned Dry Ice Decontamination System for Ultra-High Voltage Environments

To solve the problems of difficulty cleaning for “blind spots” in power equipment operation and maintenance inspections, the dry ice decontamination UAV system is designed. The proposed system is divided into the hardware and software parts. The system hardware is designed in three main parts, which are the remote control system for the ground station platform, the adaptive system for the UAV-mounted platform, and the decontamination control system. The system software mainly consists of four main parts: The first is dry ice crusher control thread, and the second is solenoid valve opening and closing thread. The third part is vibration motor running down thread, and the fourth is thread running with the rudder. After that, the accuracy and practicality of the UAS to achieve live dry ice decontamination of UHV insulators was verified through several tests, which illustrated the feasibility of live dry ice decontamination by UAV operation.