Detection of faulty power line insulators using convolutional neural networks

Inspection of overhead (OH) power lines and their subsequent maintenance is one of the major activities of electric utilities. Patrolling OH lines, which includes both distribution and transmission lines, is still an old-fashioned job and is treated as a tedious work. The traditional visual inspection of OH assets is highly error prone and costly. All the different types of insulators on OH lines may appear perfectly ok to the naked eye, but the presence of cracks and dirt can lead to flashover and subsequent tripping of the OH circuits. Proper detection of cracks and the amount of dust and dirt on insulators is still a challenging task.