A Principal Direction Detection based Porcelain Insulator Location for Transmission Line Infrared Images

Porcelain insulator is important for the safety of transmission lines, and infrared detection is a key way to find insulators degradation. However, there is a lack of fast insulator location method to automatically identify the deterioration status. In this paper, we propose a method for porcelain insulator location in infrared image based on principal direction detection. Considering the various insulator orientation in the image, we first detect the principal direction of the insulator in the infrared image. Secondly, the orientation is removed from the whole image. By searching the insulator regions along the horizontal direction, the insulator can be located easily. We use 300 infrared images to check the proposed method, the experimental results prove its performance. For infrared images captured for porcelain insulator of a high voltage transmission line, we provide a flexible method to get the steel cap location. With temperature data of located points, the temperature difference could provide quantitative analysis basis for insulator deterioration state diagnosis.