This thesis examines small low-cost light weight LiDAR systems for remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) for power transmission line (PTL) detection. Different PTL samples were used to understand how the low-cost light-weight LiDAR systems perform against them. A performance evaluation was done which included a specification comparison, data comparison, root-mean squared deviation comparison (RMSD) for both de-energized and energized PTLs and a sectional analysis. For the data comparison, the results showed LiDAR A performed better but not within the advertised precision for 5/6 of the test. The RMSD test resulted in the understanding in the accuracy of the data collected, lower deviations were found in the data collected by LiDAR B, but more consistent deviations were found in LiDAR A data. A conclusion was made that low-cost light-weight LiDAR systems would not be effective as a stand-alone system for PTL detection so it should be paired with an additional sensor.