Engineering applications of tension-controlled winches
Our winches were designed for towing paragliders: they hold the set line tension precisely, respond smoothly to jerks and spool the line neatly. The same qualities turned out to be needed in industrial tasks as well.
Power line construction with the drone
In the Altai Republic, a power line was built with the help of a drone for the first time in Russia. An industrial UAV pulled the conductor across the Biya River and a federal highway; the span is 806 metres long. Pulling the conductor along the ground was impossible because of the terrain.
The company ElKo used a specially prepared hexacopter with a release system. The stringing was done in stages: first a light Kevlar rope, then a cable, a steel pilot cable and finally the steel-aluminium conductor. The ropes were paid out by our smallest return winch, REVERSE light — the tension was held so that at every stage no rope touched an obstacle.
REVERSE light weighs only 45 kg and was designed as a payout winch to work together with the SOLO paragliding winch. It pays out line at a set tension and winds it back on its own. Being compact, it can be placed where heavy machinery cannot reach, and tension control keeps the rope from sagging down to the water or the road without overloading the drone.
Following this work, a new version of the drone was developed: four lift motors and two cruise motors, with a considerably higher pulling force.
Previously, in the mountains, in the Arctic and on difficult terrain the only alternatives were an expensive helicopter or imported equipment. An industrial drone with a winch gets where neither people nor machinery can.
More details in an article in the journal “Electric Power. Transmission and Distribution” (in Russian), which also has a photo of our winch.
Special tasks
We have experience applying our winches and building specialised devices for other tasks:
- raising and lowering tethered aerostats;
- launching drones;
- winches for stringing power lines with a drone — using UAVs to install overhead line conductors: first practical experience in Russia (in Russian);
- controlled paying out and winding of fibre-optic communication lines, for example on a moving crane gantry.
If you have a special task, we will be glad to discuss it and do our best to help solve it.
Contacts
Ivan KravchenkoTelegram
MAX
ivan@asa-paragliding.ru