A novel method for vegetation encroachment monitoring of transmission lines using a single 2D camera

The dangerous, overgrown vegetation/trees
under high voltage transmission lines right-of-ways
(ROWs) have caused severe blackouts/flashovers due to
interference with power lines which leads to short circuiting
among the conductors. Therefore, these dangerous
encroachments are monitored periodically along the electrical
distribution networks ROWs through visual inspection,
or by airborne system. Each of these methods has its
own attributes and limitations and have proved to be costly,
time consuming and not much accurate. In these circumstances,
it is necessary for the electrical utilities to review
their vegetation management practices so as to avoid
incidents of unintended encroachments. In tropical countries,
overgrown vegetation is a common cause for power
line failure. This paper proposes an innovative concept of
utilizing a single camera for monitoring dangerous vegetation
(trees, shrubs and plants, etc.) under transmission
lines ROWs. The main focus is on using an imaging device
(camera) integrated on each transmission pole to automate inspection for the vegetation encroachments endangering
the transmission lines. These cameras are envisioned to be
connected wirelessly to each other, forming a series of
wireless camera networks that can be monitored remotely.
A single camera mounted on power poles acquires images
and sends them wirelessly to the base station. At base
station, algorithm (software) trained by image processing
and pattern recognition techniques is used to identify
(height, depth, and width of encroached vegetation, etc.)
excess vegetation encroachments within and outside
ROWs. The performance evaluation of a real time developed
test-bed scenario proves the feasibilities of integrating
the method for transmission line maintenance.