# An IoT-Based System for Monitoring the Health of Guyed Towers in Overhead Power Lines
## 1 Introduction  
The collapse of overhead power line guyed towers is one of the leading causes of power grid failures, subjecting electricity companies to pay considerable high-value fines [1, 2]. In addition, city blackouts resulting from the collapse of cable-stayed structures cause a financial loss in the order of millions of dollars for companies and industries. Current traditional solutions, such as ground inspection by foot, seem ineffective since in-site periodic inspections are sometimes not enough to detect hidden defects in such structures [3]. Furthermore, the interval between visits and expensive personnel allocation makes monitoring/predicting defects difficult. They are not real-time, making it challenging to anticipate actions and prevent failures before the transmission tower's tilt occurs. The current work proposes a novel and complete framework for remotely monitoring mechanical stresses and the deformation of guyed towers. Specifically, the investigation focuses on the typical guyed-V steel lattice tower commonly seen in the Brazilian power grid, as depicted in Figure 1. The mechanical structure is also known as delta pylon, which supports high-voltage electric power transmission lines. The pylon has a V-shaped top for the cross beam admission and is usually established for one and, occasionally, for two electric circuits. Thus, these towers are for long-distance high voltage transmission in a 3-phase Delta configuration, requiring only three cables. The overall framework idea is to envisage two ways of monitoring environmental threats. First, the remotely recorded data analysis allows finding evidence of risks in the guyed tower structure, due to long-term nature action. For example, it is possible to spot guyed tower structural failure from the data history, due to the correlation between harsh environment events and the guyed tower health. The instances of harsh environment events are intense temperature variation, strong wind, and heavy rain. Second, the constant online sampling of data in the cable traction allows real-time monitoring of the guyed tower health, which helps to prompt personnel to act immediately. Consequently, a more effective corrective action helps the maintenance teams improve anchorages, increasing system reliability and the quality of service delivery. Furthermore, the reduction of in-field inspections and the adoption of ubiquitous monitoring ensure the wellness of the segment and improved quality of the energy service supply to the customer. Therefore, we expect the risk of collapse of guyed cable towers to reduce when the proposed framework is applied. In addition, we hope to facilitate inspection since remote monitoring allows to switch from periodic maintenance visits to on-demand maintenance visits, thus benefiting the electricity transmission segment. The overall research work contributions are as follows: First, it offers a non-exhaustive overview on the state of the art of guyed tower remote monitoring. Second, the proposed framework allows addressing risks of collapse in guyed tower structures. Third, the method can consider real-time monitoring or historical data processing, allowing instant and preventive actions against disasters. Fourth, the proposal is an all-purpose solution by including a flexible and energy-saving mesh network and very different sensors. Fifth, network nodes are planned to have enough processing power to implement custom algorithms to improve data forwarding. Finally, we present the application of neural network techniques to improve the performance of Low-Power and Lossy Networks. This paper organizes as follows: in Section 2, we compile a list of current related work papers on the topic of this research. Section 3 refers to the overall framework architecture. Section 4 presents an analytic model of the tower. In Section 5, we present a multi-variable  
Figure 1: Typical guyed-V steel lattice tower commonly seen in the Brazilian power grid.