Mechatronic Lighting Pole Testing Device

Abstract

Monitoring of street lighting pole health is of increasing importance. Extensive erosive damage of lighting poles may lead to unexpected falls of poles which may cause dangerous injuries and accidents. There are already existing many methods how to determine actual state of the construction. Their application is however costly, time consuming and often provide local information only (related to the position of measurement). Requirement of regular inspection of many lighting poles needs approach, which enables rapid and unsophisticated measurement device installation and usage, with automatic result evaluation. Experimental investigation of many lighting poles with several measurement methods was carried on. Especially method based on low frequency harmonic force excitation and compliance measurement gave very promising results corresponding with actual state of the pole. Based on it, automatic measurement device was proposed. The paper deals with the description of the measuring procedure and the automatic measuring device for the health monitoring of lighting poles.