Remote drone piloting and inspection of telecommunication towers and power pylons

Background

Communications towers and power pylons undergo regular inspections to comply with safety rules and technical standards. Drone-based tower inspections typically follow four steps: 1—dispatch technicians and/or drone pilots to the site, 2—while pilots fly the drone to capture images, technicians climb the tower to perform manual checks (e.g., bolt-torque, antenna pitch and azimuth, wire integrity and attachment), 3—back at the office, the team uploads and enters all collected data, 4—inspectors run specialized software to analyze the data and compile a comprehensive report. If inspectors uncover gaps, inconsistencies, or low-quality imagery (e.g., dark photos or missing angles) during reporting, some or all steps must be repeated—significantly increasing time and cost. In addition, climbing towers or pylons exposes technicians to the risk of falls and electromagnetic radiation or high voltage.

Description of the invention

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have created a web-based software platform for drone-based inspection of civil structures, including communication towers and power pylons. The system implements a novel computer vision containing two Novel View Synthesis (NVS) models. Each of the NVS models are constructed from image data representing current and previous inspection of a structure. The models are then synchronized such that for every camera and camera pose, a pair of pixel-aligned images of the same structure can be built differing only in when the inspection took place. This enables pixel-wise alignment of the images from different time windows to detect any changes/anomalies. The system accuracy is such that it also enables detection of bolt loosening in telecom towers/power pylons.

Advantages

Rapid analysis of images taken from a structure enables onsite and real-time inspection, which reduces the cost (by eliminating the need for revisiting the site for re-inspection and filling the data gap) and increases safety (potential issues are detected more accurately and much faster). Through drone-specific APIs and SDKs, the software platform also enables drone path planning and remote piloting, which further reduces the cost of inspection and increases safety by eliminating/reducing the need for technicians to climb the towers.

Potential applications

• Telecommunication tower and power pylon inspections (the invention enables detection of bolt-loosening as well)
• A data-driven marketplace that locates and verifies rentable empty space on telecom towers—based on spatial fit, structural capacity, and commercial needs