Developing Drone-Based AI for Defect Detection in Transmission Tower Bolts-and-Nuts

The Transmission System Operator (TSO) serving the Tohoku region in Japan owns approximately 48,000 transmission towers, each inspected once every ten years. This means approximately 4,000 to 5,000 towers have to be inspected annually. Currently, workers climb a tower to perform a visual inspection. Each tower contains several thousand bolts-and-nuts, making the process highly labor-intensive.