Meter Recognition Algorithm for Equipment Inspection Robot

Abstract

An improved various meters recognition algorithm was proposed which was adapted to suit the equipment inspection robot works outdoor in the smart substation.First,the template images were made for each style of meter and the min and max values were illustrated for each template image.SIFT method was utilized to match with the template image for detecting the meter device region from the real-time image captured by the robot.And then,a fast Hough transform method was proposed to detect the line in the preprocessed image as the pointer of the meter.Comparing the angle with the min or max value the result of the meter can be recognized.This algorithm has been applied in one 500 kV smart substation in China.Various instruments recognition rate of over 99.2%,with high precision and high robustness of the meter readings.Experimental results of various meters have shown good performance,which proves that the proposed method was both effective and accurate.