Xiangyang Power Grid enhances oversight with bionic inspection robots

The Xiangyang Power Supply Company of State Grid Hubei has successfully completed mid-term deployment and trial operation of a new humanoid bionic monitoring robot at the Jiangbei Centralized Control Center. Jointly developed with Huazhong University of Science and Technology and based on the Unitree G1 humanoid platform, the robot integrates multimodal sensing with autonomous learning and decision-making technologies—marking a significant step toward intelligent, collaborative grid supervision in Xiangyang.

As a key digital demonstration project under State Grid Hubei's "3354" deployment plan, the robot addresses long-standing challenges in manual monitoring. With Xiangyang's power grid expanding rapidly, the regional monitoring system now receives data from 93 substations. Operators face enormous amounts of redundant visual information, increasing the risk of delayed responses and reduced accuracy. The newly deployed robot functions as a versatile "all-round assistant," capable of listening, observing, acting, and perceiving. By leveraging unified data channels in the new-generation centralized control system, it consolidates monitoring information and automates core tasks—including information recognition, event analysis, log generation, and data reporting—effectively upgrading the entire monitoring workflow.

During trial operation, the robot demonstrated notable operational capabilities. When equipment reports an anomaly, the robot uses a large language model to identify abnormal content, automatically categorizes the event according to predefined rules, and records alert logs while issuing voice notifications to on-site staff. Upon detecting data anomalies—such as inconsistent transformer tap positions—it immediately issues a reactive power loop-flow warning and provides suggested actions. In the event of a grid fault, the robot can integrate disturbance records, protection actions, and other data to automatically generate a fault summary, reducing fault-analysis time from 15 minutes to mere seconds.

According to Liu Sisi, deputy head of the substation monitoring team, the robot's innovation lies in its combination of a "humanoid body and intelligent brain." Equipped with 43 flexible joints and dexterous hands capable of force perception, the robot can independently make phone calls and operate computer interfaces. Its power-sector-optimized speech system supports multi-round dialogue and command execution, while an autonomous decision-evolution module continuously refines its diagnostic rules through historical data learning. Compared with manual operation, the robot improves both fault-handling accuracy and response efficiency by more than 70%.

The project will continue enhancing human–robot interaction, operational supervision, and system-robot coordination, while advancing patent applications and technology transfer. With a pilot-first approach tailored to local needs, the humanoid monitoring robot will be gradually deployed across key monitoring scenarios in Xiangyang's power grid to boost centralized operation management capacity. In the next stage, the robot is expected to expand into advanced functions such as grid-state forecasting and equipment lifecycle management, contributing new intelligent momentum to the development of China's next-generation power system. (Source: China daily)