Research on foreign body detection in transmission lines based on a multi-UAV cooperative system and YOLOv7

The unique plateau geographical features and variable weather of Yunnan, China make transmission lines in this region more susceptible to coverage and damage by various foreign bodies compared to flat areas. The mountainous terrain also presents great challenges for inspecting and removing such objects. In order to improve the efficiency and detection accuracy of foreign body inspection of transmission lines, we propose a multi-UAV collaborative system specifically designed for the geographical characteristics of Yunnan's transmission lines in this paper. Additionally, the image data of foreign bodies was augmented, and the YOLOv7 target detection model, which offers a more balanced trade-off between precision and speed, was adopted to improve the accuracy and speed of foreign body detection.