Design and implementation of power line sensornet for overhead transmission lines

The task of monitoring asset status and optimizing asset utilization for the power grid, given millions of assets and hundreds of thousands of miles of power lines distributed over millions of square miles, seems costly, if not impossible. Given the traditionally high cost of sensing and communications, the current grid has minimal ‘smarts’ with much of the intelligence located at major substations. Dramatic reductions in sensor, computing and communications costs, coupled with significant performance enhancements has increased the possibility of realizing widely and massively power line sensor networks (PLSNs) to monitor utility asset status. A NSF funded a project, “Power Line Sensornet for Enhancing Line Reliability and Utilization”, has led to the development of an integrated multi-task power line sensor (PLS) module. This paper mainly addresses the design and implementation issues for such a sensor module.