A self-propelled, automated, autonomic grid crawler which, when attached to a wire, moves along the wire to sense conditions of the wire. The grid crawler includes a central processing unit (CPU), working memory, such as random access memory (RAM), persistent money, such as read only memory (ROM) and hard drive (HD), sensor electronics, a wireless interface, a location device, such as a global positioning satellite (GPS) receiver, motive power system, and a battery. The sensor electronics serves to sense various types of faults. The CPU analyzes the data from the sensor electronics using pre-analysis and pre-qualification algorithms, which are stored in the HD. Depending on the results of the analysis, the CPU transmits information to the central station, either directly or indirectly via mounted docking devices, that potentially indicates a fault, including the location of the fault as determined by the GPS receiver. The pre-processing and pre-qualifying of the data at the autonomic grid crawler limits the amount of data that needs to be transmitted to the central station, thereby saving battery power.