The normal operation of a power grid largely depends on the effective monitoring and maintenance of transmission lines, which is a process that has many challenges. The traditional method of the manual or remote inspection of transmission lines is time-consuming, laborious, and inefficient. To address this problem, a novel method has been proposed for the Multi-Robot Cyber Physical System (MRCPS) of a power grid based on inspection robots, a wireless sensor network (WSN), and multi-agent theory to achieve a low-cost, efficient, fault-tolerant, and remote monitoring of power grids. For the sake of an effective monitoring system for smart grids, the very research is conducted focusing on designing a methodology that will realize the efficient, fault-tolerant, and financial balance of a multi-robot team for monitoring transmission lines. Multiple testing scenarios are performed, in which various aspects are explored so as to determine the optimal parameters balancing team performance and financial cost. Furthermore, multi-robot team communication and navigation control in smart grid environments are introduced.

The development of engineering technology such as inspection robots (IR) for transmission lines and wireless sensor networks (WSN) are widely used in the field of smart grid monitoring. However, how to integrate inspection robots into wireless sensor networks is still a great challenge to form an efficient dynamic monitoring network for transmission lines. To address this problem, a dynamic barrier coverage (DBC) method combining inspection robot and wireless sensor network (WSN) is proposed to realize a low-cost, energy-saving and dynamic smart grid-oriented sensing system based on mobile wireless sensor network. To establish an effective smart grid monitoring system, this research focuses on the design of an effective and safe dynamic network coverage and network nodes deployment method. Multiple simulation scenarios are implemented to explore the variation of network performance with different parameters. In addition, the dynamic barrier coverage method for the actual scene of smart grid monitoring considers the balance between network performance and financial costs.

The rapid development of the smart grid has led to higher maintenance cost and greater scalability of transmission lines. An effective and secure monitoring system for power lines has become a bottleneck restricting the intellectualization of power grids. To address this problem, a novel method is proposed for the intelligent monitoring of power grids (Robot Delay-Tolerant Sensor Network, RDTSN) based on an inspection robot, Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) and Delay-Tolerant Sensor Network (DTSN) to achieve low-cost, energy-efficient, elastic and remote monitoring of power grids. With RDTSN, a smart grid can detect the fault of transmission lines and evaluate the operational state of power grids. To build an effective monitoring system for a smart grid, this research focuses on designing a methodology that achieves efficient and secure delivery of the data inspected on transmission lines. Multiple RDTSN scenarios are performed, in which different routing algorithms are explored to determine the optimal parameters, with a balance in network performance and financial cost. Furthermore, a data delivery strategy is introduced to ensure communication security.

Many social animals utter distress calls in the context of fear. These vocalizations may serve to attract audiences for help, warn individuals of danger, and confuse the predator. Here, we aim to assess the function of distress calls in free-living least horseshoe bats, Rhinolophus pusillus. We recorded distress calls from four allopatric colonies in mainland China. Playback trials, consisting of distress calls, silence, and noise, were presented to bats outside three bat roosts. Rhinolophus pusillus emitted long, harsh, broadband calls when under duress. Playback of distress calls induced a significant increase in bat passes at the loudspeaker in comparison with control trials. The number of recorded echolocation pulses increased 3.2–6.1 folds during playbacks of distress calls compared to playbacks of silence, and 2.9–5.2 folds compared to playbacks of noise. There was a positive association between bat passes and echolocation vocalizations. However, some bats delayed their emergence from the roost in response to distress call stimuli. Despite similar delayed responses, more bat passes were detected in the presence of allopatric distress calls than those from colony members. Overall, the results indicate that distress calls could attract and warn conspecifics in least horseshoe bats.

With the development of engineering technology, the distributed design-based Branch-Trimming Robot (BTR) has been used to ensure the power supply security of transmission lines. However, it remains difficult to combine distributed BTRs with a wireless sensor network to build an efficient multi-robot system. To achieve this combination, a dynamic network topology control method was proposed, combining the motion characteristics of robots with the structure of a distributed wireless sensor network. In addition, a topology-updating mechanism based on node signal strength was adopted as well. To achieve efficient data transmission for distributed multi-robot systems, the present study focused on the design of a distributed network model and a dynamic network topology control strategy. Several simulation and test scenarios were implemented, and the changes of network performance under different parameters were studied. Furthermore, the real scene-based dynamic topology control method considers the relationship between network performance and antenna layout.