Gabor wavelet transform combined with area CNN in appearance intelligent detection of stayed cables

The major structure for transmitting forces in a cable-stayed bridge is the stay cable. If the stay cable system fails, the whole bridge will collapse. At present, there is no very mature technical means for the detection of bridge cables. The most common method is for workers to perform regular manual inspection and replacement of cables. Although the defect condition of the cable can be detected to a certain extent, the real-time monitoring of its health cannot be realized. Therefore, the research used the median filter, mean standardization method and Retinex algorithm to preprocess the image data. And after extracting the stay cable picture’s macroscopic characteristics using the Gabor wavelet transform, it implemented image segmentation using the OTSU approach. The obtained feature images were applied to the Faster Regional Convolution Neural Network (RCNN) recognition model to detect microscopic defects. During the research, the training efficiency of traditional Convolution Neural Network (CNN) was not high. Therefore, Faster RCNN built a cable defect recognition model. Based on this, the research built an intelligent detection model for apparent defects of stay cables based on Gabor wavelet transform and improved RCNN. Through the experimental analysis, the model built for the study has a recognition accuracy rate of 94.14 %, which can achieve dynamic bridge health monitoring and instantly identify the condition of the stay cables, and maintain the safety of the bridge.