HiBot and Kansai plan to have their robot in operation by March of next year, according to Guarnieri. In two years, says Kansai's Expliner project manager, Kiyoshi Tamura, "we plan to have trained workers operating these robots to conduct practical inspection tasks."

At that point, Expliner will double the total number of transmission-line inspection robots in service. Hydro-Québec's LineScout—a single-line roller with gripper arms that grasp each side of an obstacle and flip the traction wheels from one side of an obstacle to the other—is the only such bot in operation on live power networks now.

According to Montambault, of Hydro-Québec, this robot has done six jobs on Quebec's power lines since 2006, including actual manipulation of line components last year. In a review of the state of the art in transmission-line robotics published earlier this year, Montambault and his colleagues suggested that such maintenance—not just inspection jobs—will become an important application of robotics for the power industry.

"It's one thing to run on a live wire," Montambault says. "But [robots] need sensors and tools to add value to every presence [they] have on the network." His goal is to fully automate the LineScout device. However, the transmission-line maintenance field is "quite a conservative place, so just using robots is something," he says, and there will "still be a human in the loop for many years to come."

HiBot's Expliner is not aiming for autonomy, according to Debenest. In the field, he says, line technicians are "happy to have a machine that makes their job easier, safer, and more efficient, of course, but they want to be in charge of the machine." Guarnieri adds that keeping the bot teleoperated makes the system "simpler and cheaper," a must for electric power companies.