AUTOMATING POWERLINE INSPECTION: A NOVEL MULTISENSOR SYSTEM FOR DATA ANALYSIS USING DEEP LEARNING

Abstract. Powerline infrastructure provides the backbone for the electricity supply of industrial, administrative and private sectors. Its maintenance requires regular inspections, that are still largely carried out manually. In this work, we propose an automated inspection system instead. We review current inspection processes as a baseline, give an overview of relevant inspection criteria, propose a suitable multi-modal sensor system, and discuss methods to automate the inspection tasks. In our system, we particularly focus on the high-level organization of the sensor data and inspection results to form a Digital Twin of the power line, that allows operators to browse through the recorded data in a meaningful way and review the status of their powerline from the desk.