Exploring SSD Detector for Power Line Insulator Detection on Edge Platform

Power line insulator detection is pivotal for the consistent performance of the entire power system. It forms the basis of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) inspection, an emerging trend in power line surveillance. This paper addresses the challenge of insulator detection in cluttered aerial images, given the constraints of a limited dataset and lower computational resources, specifically on the NVIDIA Jetson Nano platform. We have developed two approaches based on active and passive deep learning algorithms, underpinned by the Single Shot Multibox Detector (SSD) meta-architecture with MobileNetV2 as its backbone - SSD300 and SSD640. The proposal models managed a frame rate of 9 fps in 10W power mode and 5.6 fps in 5W power mode. Our experiments demonstrated that the proposed active learning model could conduct robust insulator detection, achieving a mAP of 94.5% while using only 43% of the total dataset, comparable to the traditional deep learning approach's 94.6% mAP using the entire dataset. Significantly, the active learning model seeks feedback during the training process, enabling it to learn from its mistakes and enhance accuracy over time. This also contributes to improved generalizability and interpretability of the model by seeking diverse and representative samples during training, all while reducing the computational and annotation overhead

Automatic vision based fault detection on electricity transmission components using very highresolution

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial TechnologiesElectricity is indispensable to modern-day governments and citizenry’s day-to-day operations. Fault identification is one of the most significant bottlenecks faced by Electricity transmission and distribution utilities in developing countries to deliver credible services to customers and ensure proper asset audit and management for network optimization and load forecasting. This is due to data scarcity, asset inaccessibility and insecurity, ground-surveys complexity, untimeliness, and general human cost. In this context, we exploit the use of oblique drone imagery with a high spatial resolution to monitor four major Electric power transmission network (EPTN) components condition through a fine-tuned deep learning approach, i.e., Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). This study explored the capability of the Single Shot Multibox Detector (SSD), a onestage object detection model on the electric transmission power line imagery to localize, classify and inspect faults present. The components fault considered include the broken insulator plate, missing insulator plate, missing knob, and rusty clamp. The adopted network used a CNN based on a multiscale layer feature pyramid network (FPN) using aerial image patches and ground truth to localise and detect faults via a one-phase procedure. The SSD Rest50 architecture variation performed the best with a mean Average Precision of 89.61%. All the developed SSD based models achieve a high precision rate and low recall rate in detecting the faulty components, thus achieving acceptable balance levels F1-score and representation. Finally, comparable to other works of literature within this same domain, deep-learning will boost timeliness of EPTN inspection and their component fault mapping in the long - run if these deep learning architectures are widely understood, adequate training samples exist to represent multiple fault characteristics; and the effects of augmenting available datasets, balancing intra-class heterogeneity, and small-scale datasets are clearly understood

Aerial Image Analysis using Deep Learning for Electrical Overhead Line Network Asset Management

Electricity networks are critical infrastructure, delivering vital energy services. Due to the significant number, variety and distribution of electrical network overhead line assets, energy network operators spend millions annually on inspection and maintenance programmes. Currently, inspection involves acquiring and manually analysing aerial images. This is labour intensive and subjective. Along with costs associated with helicopter or drone operations, data analysis represents a significant financial burden to network operators. We propose an approach to automating assessment of the condition of electrical towers. Importantly, we train machine learning tower classifiers without using condition labels for individual components of interest. Instead, learning is supervised using only condition labels for towers in their entirety. This enables us to use a real-world industry dataset without needing costly additional human labelling of thousands of individual components. Our prototype first detects instances of components in multiple images of each tower, using Mask R-CNN or RetinaNet. It then predicts tower condition ratings using one of two approaches: (i) component instance classifiers trained using class labels transferred from towers to each of their detected component instances, or (ii) multiple instance learning classifiers based on bags of detected instances. Instance or bag class predictions are aggregated to obtain tower condition ratings. Evaluation used a dataset with representative tower images and associated condition ratings covering a range of component types, scenes, environmental conditions, and viewpoints. We report experiments investigating classification of towers based on the condition of their multiple insulator and U-bolt components. Insulators and their U-bolts were detected with average precision of 96.7 and 97.9, respectively. Tower classification achieved areas under ROC curves of 0.94 and 0.98 for insulator condition and U-bolt condition ratings, respectively. Thus we demonstrate that tower condition classifiers can be trained effectively without labelling the condition of individual components

Autonomous UAV System for Cleaning Insulators in Power Line Inspection and Maintenance

The inspection and maintenance tasks of electrical installations are very demanding. Nowadays, insulator cleaning is carried out manually by operators using scaffolds, ropes, or even helicopters. However, these operations involve potential risks for humans and the electrical structure. The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) to reduce the risk of these tasks is rising. This paper presents an UAV to autonomously clean insulators on power lines. First, an insulator detection and tracking algorithm has been implemented to control the UAV in operation. Second, a cleaning tool has been designed consisting of a pump, a tank, and an arm to direct the flow of cleaning liquid. Third, a vision system has been developed that is capable of detecting soiled areas using a semantic segmentation neuronal network, calculating the trajectory for cleaning in the image plane, and generating arm trajectories to efficiently clean the insulator. Fourth, an autonomous system has been developed to land on a charging pad to charge the batteries and potentially fill the tank with cleaning liquid. Finally, the autonomous system has been validated in a controlled outdoor environment.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (CDTI) AERIAL-CORE H2020 ICT-10-2019-2020FEDER INTERCONECT

InsPLAD: A Dataset and Benchmark for Power Line Asset Inspection in UAV Images

Power line maintenance and inspection are essential to avoid power supply interruptions, reducing its high social and financial impacts yearly. Automating power line visual inspections remains a relevant open problem for the industry due to the lack of public real-world datasets of power line components and their various defects to foster new research. This paper introduces InsPLAD, a Power Line Asset Inspection Dataset and Benchmark containing 10,607 high-resolution Unmanned Aerial Vehicles colour images. The dataset contains seventeen unique power line assets captured from real-world operating power lines. Additionally, five of those assets present six defects: four of which are corrosion, one is a broken component, and one is a bird's nest presence. All assets were labelled according to their condition, whether normal or the defect name found on an image level. We thoroughly evaluate state-of-the-art and popular methods for three image-level computer vision tasks covered by InsPLAD: object detection, through the AP metric; defect classification, through Balanced Accuracy; and anomaly detection, through the AUROC metric. InsPLAD offers various vision challenges from uncontrolled environments, such as multi-scale objects, multi-size class instances, multiple objects per image, intra-class variation, cluttered background, distinct point-of-views, perspective distortion, occlusion, and varied lighting conditions. To the best of our knowledge, InsPLAD is the first large real-world dataset and benchmark for power line asset inspection with multiple components and defects for various computer vision tasks, with a potential impact to improve state-of-the-art methods in the field. It will be publicly available in its integrity on a repository with a thorough description. It can be found at https://github.com/andreluizbvs/InsPLAD.Comment: This is an original manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in the International Journal of Remote Sensing on 29 Nov 2023, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2023.228390

Semi-ProtoPNet Deep Neural Network for the Classification of Defective Power Grid Distribution Structures

Power distribution grids are typically installed outdoors and are exposed to environmental conditions. When contamination accumulates in the structures of the network, there may be shutdowns caused by electrical arcs. To improve the reliability of the network, visual inspections of the electrical power system can be carried out; these inspections can be automated using computer vision techniques based on deep neural networks. Based on this need, this paper proposes the Semi-ProtoPNet deep learning model to classify defective structures in the power distribution networks. The Semi-ProtoPNet deep neural network does not perform convex optimization of its last dense layer to maintain the impact of the negative reasoning process on image classification. The negative reasoning process rejects the incorrect classes of an input image; for this reason, it is possible to carry out an analysis with a low number of images that have different backgrounds, which is one of the challenges of this type of analysis. Semi-ProtoPNet achieves an accuracy of 97.22%, being superior to VGG-13, VGG-16, VGG-19, ResNet-34, ResNet-50, ResNet-152, DenseNet-121, DenseNet-161, DenseNet-201, and also models of the same class such as ProtoPNet, NP-ProtoPNet, Gen-ProtoPNet, and Ps-ProtoPNet

Deep Learning Approach for UAV Visual Electrical Assets Inspection

The growth in the electrical demand by most countries around the world requires bigger and more complex energy systems, which leads to the requirement of having even more monitoring, inspection and maintenance of those systems. To respond to this need, inspection methods based on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) have emerged which, when equipped with the appropriate sensors, allow a greater reduction of costs and risks and an increase in efficiency and effectiveness compared to traditional methods, such as inspection with foot patrols or helicopter-assisted. To make the inspection process more autonomous and reliable, most of the methods apply visual detection methods that use highly complex Deep Learning based algorithms and that require a very large computational power. This dissertation intends to present a system for inspection of electrical assets, able to be integrated onboard the UAV, based on Deep Learning, which allows to collect visual samples grouped and aggregated for each electrical asset detected. To this end, a perception system capable of detecting electrical insulators or structures, such as poles or transmission towers, was developed, using the Movidius Neural Compute Stick portable platform that is capable of processing lightweight object detection Convolutional Neural Networks, allowing a modular, low-cost system that meets real-time processing requirements. In addition to this perception system, an electrical asset monitoring system has been implemented that allows tracking and mapping each asset throughout the inspection process, based on the previous system’s detections and a UAV navigation system. Finally, an autonomous inspection system is proposed, which consists of a set of trajectories that allow an efficient application of the monitoring system along a power line, through the mapping of structures and the gathering of insulator samples around that structure.O grande crescimento da exigência elétrica pela maioria dos países por todo o mundo, requer que os sistemas de energia sejam maiores e mais complexos, o que conduz a uma maior necessidade de monitorização, inspeção e manutenção desses sistemas. Para responder a esta necessidade, surgiram métodos de inspeção baseados em Veículos Aéreos Não Tripulados (VANT) que, quando equipados com os sensores apropriados, permitem uma maior redução de custos e riscos e um grande aumento de eficiência e eficácia em comparação com os métodos tradicionais, como a inspeção com patrulhas pedonais ou assistida por helicóptero. Para tornar processo de inspeção mais autónomo e confiável, a maioria dos métodos realiza método de deteção visuais que utilizam algoritmos baseados em Deep Learning de elevada complexidade e que requerem um poder computacional muito grande. Nesta dissertação pretende-se apresentar um sistema de inspeção de ativos elétricos, para integração em VANTs, baseado em Apredizagem Profunda, que permite recolher amostras visuais agrupadas e agregadas por cada ativo elétrico detetado. Para tal foi desenvolvido um sistema de perceção capaz de detetar isoladores elétricos ou estruturas, como postes ou torres de transmissão, com recurso `a plataforma portátil Movidius Neural Compute Stick que ´e capaz de processar Redes Neuronais Convolucionais leves de deteção de objetos, permitindo assim um sistema modular, de baixo custo e que cumpre requisitos de processamento em tempo real. Para além deste sistema de perceção, foi implementado um sistema de monitorização de ativos elétricos que permite seguir e mapear cada ativo ao longo do processo de inspeção, com base nas deteções do sistema anterior e no sistema de navegação do VANT. Por fim, ´e proposto um sistema de inspeção autónomo que consiste num conjunto de trajetórias que permitem aplicar o sistema de monitorização de ativos elétricos ao longo de uma linha elétrica, através do mapeamento de estruturas e na recolha de amostras de isoladores em torno dessa estrutura

Arbitrary-Oriented Detection of Insulators in Thermal Imagery via Rotation Region Network

10.13039/501100004607-Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi Province (Grant Number: 2018JJB160056); Guangxi Science and Technology Base and Talent Project (Grant Number: 2020AC19010); 10.13039/501100001809-National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number: 51907034)