Automated Cell Tower Inventory via Image Overlay Analysis
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Solution Overview
Problem
Inventory tracking for technology migration and upgrades, such as 4G to 5G migration, is expensive and labor-intensive, requiring extensive staff and time due to the numerous types of equipment involved, like antennas, remote radio heads, and other equipment on cell towers.
Innovation Solution
A method and apparatus for automatically creating an equipment inventory from a plurality of images of a site using a processor to receive images, label equipment, create an overlap curve for neighboring images, determine useful images, create an overlay of equipment, count equipment, and generate an inventory.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If manual inventory tracking methods are used, then staff can identify and count equipment, but the process requires extensive time and labor resources
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces manual mechanical inventory tracking with an automated image processing system. A processor receives images of cell towers, automatically identifies equipment types through image analysis, and generates inventory lists without human intervention in the counting process, thereby dramatically increasing productivity and reducing time loss
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses aerial images as copies of the physical cell tower equipment to create inventories. Instead of physically inspecting each piece of equipment, the system creates accurate representations from images, allowing rapid inventory generation that preserves all necessary information about equipment types and locations
2Measurement precision
If comprehensive equipment identification is performed manually, then all equipment types can be cataloged, but the complexity of tracking dozens of equipment types increases the task difficulty
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces complex manual identification of dozens of equipment types with automated image processing algorithms. The processor systematically analyzes images to identify and categorize all equipment types, maintaining high accuracy while reducing the operational complexity that would burden human staff
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the inventory tracking task into distinct image processing steps: receiving images, identifying equipment types, counting equipment, and generating inventory lists. This segmentation simplifies the overall complex task of tracking dozens of equipment types by breaking it into manageable automated operations
Data Source
AI summary
A method for automatically creating an equipment inventory from a plurality of images of a site. The method includes receiving, by a processor, the plurality of images of the site, labeling, by the processor, equipment present in each image of the plurality of images of the site, creating, by the processor, an overlap curve for neighboring images of the plurality of images of the site, determining, by the processor, a useful image of each side of the site based on the overlap curve, the useful image including a subset of the plurality of images, creating, by the processor, an overlay of equipment in the useful image of each side of the site, counting, by the processor, equipment present in the overlay of each side of the site, and generating, by the processor, the equipment inventory by adding a number of equipment counted in the overlay of each side of the site.