A computer vision approach to improve maintenance automation for thermal power plants lubrication systems

Purpose Lubricating oil leakage is a common issue in thermal power plant operation sites, requiring prompt equipment maintenance. The real-time detection of leakage occurrences could avoid disruptive consequences caused by the lack of timely maintenance. Currently, inspection operations are mostly carried out manually, resulting in time-consuming processes prone to health and safety hazards. To overcome such issues, this paper proposes a machine vision-based inspection system aimed at automating the oil leakage detection for improving the maintenance procedures. Design/methodology/approach The approach aims at developing a novel modular-structured automatic inspection system. The image acquisition module collects digital images along a predefined inspection path using a dual-light (i.e. ultraviolet and blue light) illumination system, deploying the fluorescence of the lubricating oil while suppressing unwanted background noise. The image processing module is designed to detect the oil leakage within the digital images minimizing detection errors. A case study is reported to validate the industrial suitability of the proposed inspection system. Findings On-site experimental results demonstrate the capabilities to complete the automatic inspection procedures of the tested industrial equipment by achieving an oil leakage detection accuracy up to 99.13%. Practical implications The proposed inspection system can be adopted in industrial context to detect lubricant leakage ensuring the equipment and the operators safety. Originality/value The proposed inspection system adopts a computer vision approach, which deploys the combination of two separate sources of light, to boost the detection capabilities, enabling the application for a variety of particularly hard-to-inspect industrial contexts.