article · Drones
Unmanned aerial vehicles offer a safer, more efficient, and cost-effective alternative to manual checks and helicopter surveys for power line inspections. A systematic review using the PRISMA methodology examined 75 selected studies from the Scopus database to evaluate innovations and trends in this field. The findings reveal a significant transition towards predictive maintenance, the deployment of multiple coordinated drones, and real-time data analysis. Despite rapid technological and algorithmic progress, practical obstacles persist. Crucial ongoing challenges include establishing reliable communication between drones and electrical grids, ensuring operational resilience during extreme weather conditions, and achieving large-scale automation. By analysing current research patterns and highlighting knowledge gaps, this review identifies essential future research directions required to advance automated aerial utility inspections.
Power lines are essential infrastructure, but traditional inspections rely on dangerous manual climbing or expensive helicopter flights. Understanding the current capabilities and limitations of inspection drones helps utility providers adopt safer, cheaper, and more dependable monitoring methods, ultimately reducing power outages and lowering maintenance costs for electricity networks.
This review synthesises operational trends relevant to electric utility operators, drone manufacturers, and inspection software developers. The highlighted applications, such as real-time analytics and multi-drone coordination, show potential for industry adoption, but the work itself is a secondary research study. Persistent technical barriers in large-scale automation, extreme weather resilience, and grid connectivity suggest fully autonomous commercial systems remain an applied research and development challenge.
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Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) make power line inspections more safe, efficient, and cost-effective, replacing risky manual checks and expensive helicopter surveys while overcoming challenges like stability and regulations. The aim of this study is to conduct a systematic review of the application of UAVs for power line inspections. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology is implemented to ensure a structured and comprehensive review process. The Scopus database is used to identify relevant publications, and after screening and applying eligibility criteria, 75 documents were selected for further analysis. The study results show a shift toward predictive maintenance, multi-UAV operations, and real-time data analysis. However, challenges remain, including UAV–grid connectivity, resilience to extreme weather, and large-scale automation. This work provides key insights into technological and algorithmic advancements and research trends on UAV-based power line inspections while pointing out gaps in the existing literature. Finally, future research directions to advance UAV-based power line inspections are suggested.
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DOI: 10.3390/drones9040265
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