A Fast Insulator-Contour-Detection-Algorithm on Power Transmission Lines Images

The paper proposes a novel insulator-contour-detection-algorithm on power transmission lines images. The insulator-contour-detection-algorithm will have very important academic and practical significance in helicopter or robot patrol system on power transmission lines. The physical characteristics of insulator are analyzed in detail to obtain image features of insulator, and the Hough transform based on gradient information is used to detect the ellipse on the image. After double thresholds processing to the size of ellipse, linear fitting about the center of ellipse, template matching of the center of ellipse based on hausdorff distance, the insulator ellipse is determined. The consuming time of the algorithm is about 50 to 200 ms, so the algorithm can meet the requirement of real-time system. The experiment result approves it.