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Topic · Mechanical Engineering

Power Line Inspection Robots

Power Line Inspection Robots is a research topic within Mechanical Engineering. Science Explorer counts 7.9k research works in it since 1950. 9.9% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers focuses on the development and application of robotic systems for the inspection, maintenance, and monitoring of power transmission lines. It covers a wide range of technologies including unmanned aerial vehicles, obstacle navigation, autonomous systems, and substation inspection.

  • Robotics
  • Power Transmission Lines
  • Inspection
  • Maintenance
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
  • Obstacle Navigation
  • High-Voltage Lines
  • Autonomous Systems
  • Substation Inspection
  • Mobile Robots
Research works
7.9k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
788
per year above
Top-10% rate
9.9%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+131%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
77% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Power Line Inspection Robots

Which countries lead Power Line Inspection Robots research?

By volume, China and India publish the most (1.7k and 135 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 1.7k works
  2. 2 India 135 works
  3. 3 United States 118 works
  4. 4 Japan 81 works
  5. 5 ?? 71 works
  6. 6 United Kingdom 31 works
  7. 7 Russia 26 works
  8. 8 South Korea 26 works
  9. 9 Brazil 24 works
  10. 10 Indonesia 19 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 76.5%India: 6.0%United States: 5.2%Japan: 3.6%6 others listed: 8.7%77%largest
China1,724 · 76.5%India135 · 6.0%United States118 · 5.2%Japan81 · 3.6%6 others listed196 · 8.7%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Power Line Inspection Robots research?

By volume in 2022-now, State Grid Corporation of China (China) publishes the most Power Line Inspection Robots research, followed by China Southern Power Grid (China) and Shanghai Electric (China).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 State Grid Corporation of China (China)China 130 works
  2. 2 China Southern Power Grid (China)China 120 works
  3. 3 Shanghai Electric (China)China 75 works
  4. 4 North China Electric Power UniversityChina 57 works
  5. 5 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 32 works
  6. 6 Power Grid Corporation (India)India 27 works
  7. 7 Xi'an Jiaotong UniversityChina 21 works
  8. 8 Guizhou Electric Power Design and Research InstituteChina 21 works
  9. 9 Inner Mongolia Electric Power (China)China 21 works
  10. 10 Fujian Electric Power Survey & Design InstituteChina 18 works

Who are the leading researchers in Power Line Inspection Robots?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Power Line Inspection Robots include Hua Zhang, Qiang Zhang and Huan Liu.

  1. 1 Hua Zhang Singapore 196k citations
  2. 2 Qiang Zhang China 184k citations
  3. 3 Huan Liu Australia 148k citations
  4. 4 Hao Chen China 118k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Power Line Inspection Robots?

The most cited paper in Power Line Inspection Robots is "Robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy versus open radical retropubic prostatectomy: early outcomes from a randomised controlled phase 3 study" (John William Yaxley, Geoffrey D. Coughlin, Suzanne K. Chambers et al., 2016), with 713 citations. Next come "Automatic autonomous vision-based power line inspection: A review of current status and the potential role of deep learning" (598) and "A Review on State-of-the-Art Power Line Inspection Techniques" (438).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy versus open radical retropubic prostatectomy: early outcomes from a randomised controlled phase 3 study John William Yaxley, Geoffrey D. Coughlin, Suzanne K. Chambers et al. · The Lancet 28 Jul 2016 713
2 Automatic autonomous vision-based power line inspection: A review of current status and the potential role of deep learning Van Nhan Nguyen, Robert Jenssen, Davide Roverso · International Journal of Electrical Power & Energy Systems Open access 9 Jan 2018 598
3 A Review on State-of-the-Art Power Line Inspection Techniques Lei Yang, Junfeng Fan, Yanhong Liu et al. · IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement 15 Oct 2020 438
4 Remote sensing methods for power line corridor surveys Leena Matikainen, Matti Lehtomäki, Eero Ahokas et al. · ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Open access 26 May 2016 411
5 On Stripline Y-Circulation at UHF H. Bosma · IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques 1964 390
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Power Line Inspection Robots research done?

The largest centres of Power Line Inspection Robots research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Guangzhou (China), Shanghai (China) and Nanjing (China). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Beijing, Gurgaon and Hohhot.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 325 works
  2. 2 GuangzhouChina 152 works
  3. 3 ShanghaiChina 148 works
  4. 4 NanjingChina 85 works
  5. 5 WuhanChina 73 works
  6. 6 Xi'anChina 69 works
  7. 7 ChangshaChina 54 works
  8. 8 TianjinChina 47 works
  9. 9 ChengduChina 43 works
  10. 10 ShenyangChina 41 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. Beijing30.7 works32×
  2. GurgaonIN · 27.6 works28×
  3. HohhotCN · 26.7 works13×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Power Line Inspection Robots than the world average.

See Power Line Inspection Robots on the map

Where is the best place to study Power Line Inspection Robots?

Among universities, judged by research, Hunan University, North China Electric Power University and China University of Mining and Technology score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%30%mean 18.62%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Hunan UniversityChina University of …Wuhan UniversityNorth China Electric…
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Hunan UniversityChina 70.827.0%7.1×11 +447.0%
2North China Electric Power UniversityChina 66.910.5%39.6×57 +86.4%
3China University of Mining and TechnologyChina 66.623.7%8.7×15 +173.8%
4Wuhan UniversityChina 64.514.1%5.7×17 +29.6%
5Hubei University of TechnologyChina 61.225.4%15.9×8 +116.9%
6Southeast UniversityChina 59.016.4%4.4×14 +163.1%
7Xi'an Jiaotong UniversityChina 58.511.6%5.7×21 +74.2%
8Hohai UniversityChina 58.317.8%10.4×13 +650.0%
9Harbin Institute of TechnologyChina 57.917.8%4.1×14 +124.8%
10Northeastern UniversityChina 54.721.9%5.2×10 +175.0%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Power Line Inspection Robots, country by country

Is Power Line Inspection Robots research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 131% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Power Line Inspection Robots.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Power Line Inspection Robots as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.011% in 2024.

still counting0.0050%0.010%0.015%Power Line Inspection Robots0.013% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Power Line Inspection Robots over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Power Line Inspection Robots10.0% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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