Engineers at Novosibirsk State Technical University (NSTU) have developed a program for classifying power transmission poles into groups based on the degree of wear. Automatic design allows you to rank structures into categories for more efficient cost planning for maintenance and repair.
One of the important conditions for ensuring stable power supply is monitoring the actual technical condition of overhead transmission line poles, especially for structures that last 35-40 years. As a rule, specialists diagnose the conditions of power transmission poles, which every six years remove about 20 parameters: the degree of deformation of the corners, damage to insulators, loosening of the support to the foundation, the roll of the structure, etc. At NSTU-NETI, it was proposed to determine the degree of wear of the supports using a special program based on experimentally determined vibration frequencies of the structure.
According to Alexey Kozhevnikov, Associate Professor of the Department of Aircraft Strength at the Faculty of Aircraft Engineering, Candidate of Technical Sciences, the diagnosis of overhead line supports is based on a control parameter such as the frequency of natural vibrations, which is determined using a special LAPTON-1 sensor developed at NSTU-NETI several years ago. "The sensors installed on the support structure collect large amounts of data, so we needed software that automatically processes information and ranks the supports according to the degree of wear — from serviceable to limited-operable," said Alexey Kozhevnikov.
Currently, the software created at NSTU-NETI, which has received a computer program registration certificate (No. 2025688297 dated 10/17/2025), is used in the educational process to familiarize students with modern approaches to diagnosing the condition of energy structures. The program was written jointly with Pavel Lastochkin, a graduate student at the Department of PLA, while preparing his PhD thesis.
NSTU-NETI considers the development to be unique. "There are no analogues of our program, which operates in frequency, in the domestic energy sector. In addition, our software allows you to save money on diagnostics and time for specialists," Alexey Kozhevnikov emphasized.
Earlier, NSTU-NETI developed a unique method for evaluating power lines without human intervention.