A STUDY ON COMBINATION OF DRONE AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD AND INFRARED IMAGE FOR WORK EFFICIENCY OF PENSTOK MAINTENANCE

Abstract

A hydroelectric power generates an eroctronicity with potential energy of water flow. The water is carried from fountainhead to hydroelectric plant path through a penstock. A penstock diameter is approximately tens of centimeters to several meters, length is approximately tens of meters to several kilometers. A regular maintenance method of penstock needs worker to approaching penstock and check it surface by their eye. Maintenance worker have to walk the distance from one end to the other of penstock to check the whole. This method needs much time and cost.

We proposed automatic maintenance method using a drone and image processing method and evaluated it. On the other hand, an penstock is located at the outside in many case. Therefore, an penstock is sometimes covered by mad, leaves, glass and so on. It is difficult to distinguish such noises by visual image processing method. We focus on an infrared image to improve proposed method. We discussed a probability of infrared image by compared infrared images and visual images taken by drone.