Detection and Identification of Insulator Defects using Hierarchical Networks in the High-speed Railway Overhead Contact System

摘要

The high-speed railway overhead contact system is a transmission line that is erected along the high-speed railway andsupplies power to the electric locomotive. Once the overhead contact system is powered off, it will directly affect thesafe operation of the locomotive, with serious consequences. Insulators are the key components for regular inspection ofhigh-speed railway overhead contact system. The common faults of insulators are damage, dirt and discharge. There aremany types of components in a single image, but their shapes vary from different components. These components shouldbe divided into normal or multiple different fault types. Usually the difference between different fault types of the samecomponent is small. Therefore, a hierarchical coarse-to-fine strategy is proposed to address this issue. Specifically, for atrade-off between efficiency and accuracy, an efficient network is leveraged to detect the insulator in the image, and anaccurate network is then utilized to identify the fault.