Avangrid creates robot dog to help inspect substations
New England Council member, Avangrid Inc., has created a robot dog to help with electrical substation inspections. Avangrid is an energy services and delivery company that serves around 3.1 million customers throughout New England, Pennsylvania, and New York. The robot dog, nicknamed “Sparky”, was developed in collaboration with the AI company, Levatas, and the engineering company, Boston Dynamic.
Sparky will be tasked with conducting visual and thermal inspections of UI substations. The robot can read analog gauges, record thermal images and detect damaged equipment. According to an announcement from Avangrid, Sparky has a camera with a 30-times optical zoom and an infrared camera capable of taking thermal readings to compare transformer and breaker phases.
“It’s amazing to see this technology, which was inconceivable a few years ago, in our hands bringing value and benefits to our customers,” said Catherine Stempien, President and CEO of Avangrid Networks. “While there will be many benefits, most important is that we expect Sparky will increase the frequency of our substation inspections so that we can see how our equipment is functioning during different seasons, times of the day and energy loads.”
The New England Council would like to commend Avangrid Inc. for the creation of this innovative tool.
Read more in the Hartford Business Journal.