Abstract: Power line maintenance robots are used to replace workers due to the dangerous maintenance operation, and the robot maintenance effect is much related with accurate fault detection and rational behavior planning. With those requirements in mind, a visual method is presented to detect the broken strand fault based on the classification of an image feature. In the visual detection method, image edge gradient histogram is firstly extracted as the image feature, and broken strand detection can be accomplished by the classification of the image feature with support vector machine (SVM) method. On this basis, several robot state vectors are established by combining the broken strand detection result and the information of robot sensors. Based on the current state vector and robotic broken strand repair process, a behavior planning method for broken strand repair is proposed toward complex operations of broken strand return and clamps installation. Experiments are carried out in the laboratory, and results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed broken strand detection method and the behavior planning method.