An Application of Stereo Thermal Vision for Preliminary Inspection of Electrical Power Lines by MAVs

TL;DR

This paper presents a stereo thermal vision system for small UAVs to perform preliminary electrical power line inspections, detecting overheating equipment and assessing damage in hard-to-reach areas through simulations and real flights.

Contribution

It introduces a novel hardware and software setup combining stereo thermal vision with UAVs for electrical inspections, enhancing damage detection and accessibility.

Findings

Successful detection of overheated components

Effective damage assessment capabilities

Feasibility demonstrated through simulations and real flights

Abstract

An application of stereo thermal vision to perform preliminary inspection operations of electrical power lines by a particular class of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), aka Micro Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (MAVs), is presented in this paper. The proposed hardware and software setup allows the detection of overheated power equipment, one of the major causes of power outages. The stereo vision complements the GPS information by finely detecting the potential source of damage while also providing a measure of the harm extension. The reduced sizes and the light weight of the vehicle enable to survey areas otherwise difficult to access with standard UAVs. Gazebo simulations and real flight experiments demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed setup.