Computer Vision AI
Structural Integrity & Vibration Monitoring
ViDeoMAgic takes digital videos of vibrating structures and extracts high-spatial-resolution (pixel-level) vibration/dynamics information, such as displacement time histories, natural frequencies, damping ratios, and mode shapes.
ViDeoMAgic can dynamically measure and monitor renewable infrastructure such as wind turbines and hydroelectric turbines. The physical size of wind turbines makes it difficult and time-consuming to mount discrete sensors on wind turbine foundations, towers, and rotating shafts of hydroelectric turbines. ViDeoMAgic can take such measurements without contact by using digital video. Such remote measurements are more practical and cost-effective.
ViDeoMAgic performs rapid dynamic measurement and damage detections of large-scale civil infrastructure such as buildings, bridges, and dams subject to various types of dynamic loading (such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and tornadoes) and operational loading (such as wind and traffic loads).
In the mining and metals industry, ViDeoMAgic monitors the structural integrity and health of various critical infrastructures, such as the structural health of tailings dams, which store mining waste. Detecting vibrations and potential weaknesses can help prevent dam failures, which can have catastrophic environmental and safety consequences. It also can be used to monitor the vibrations and structural health of mine shafts and tunnels, ensuring they remain stable and safe for workers.
In addition, it can be used after controlled blasts to assess the impact on nearby structures, ensuring that the integrity of essential infrastructure is maintained and identifying any need for repairs. Furthermore, the technology can monitor the structural health of storage facilities for mined materials, such as silos and tanks, ensuring they remain safe and preventing leaks or collapses.
In the oil and gas industry, ViDeoMAgic offers a high-resolution, real-time solution for monitoring the structural integrity and operational efficiency of pipelines, offshore platforms, drilling rigs, refinery equipment, and storage tanks. Detecting early signs of wear, leaks, and mechanical failures prevents costly shutdowns and environmental hazards.
ViDeoMAgic rapidly measures the dynamic response and identifies the dynamic properties of aircraft to better validate high-fidelity computer models that are key to the aircraft certification process. This information can also be used to locate small structural defects at resolutions not previously possible.
Although there are conventional methods that can also detect such subtle local damage, these methodologies, such as ultrasonic or x-ray inspections, are expensive compared to ViDeoMAgic. Moreover, ViDeoMAgic is entirely passive, requiring only ambient vibration of the structure during operation as the excitation source. Thus, a user can perform a very low-cost and rapid condition assessment by analyzing only a video of a structure.
ViDeoMAgic enables automotive engineers to better correlate high-fidelity computer models (finite-element simulations) with measured dynamics-response data, which in turn improves the predictive accuracies of such models. Conventionally, performing such tests is very expensive. With ViDeoMAgic, the number of measurement points increases from a few hundred using conventional methods such as accelerometers and strain gages to hundreds of thousands (or even more) associated with each pixel in a video.
ViDeoMAgic is fast, agile, and does not make contact, thus making it ideal for noninvasive, online dynamic measurements and monitoring of additive manufactured components and materials for quality control. ViDeoMAgic readily identifies manufacturing defects from very local discontinuities. With ViDeoMAgic, parts can be continuously monitored as they are assembled, thus minimizing the need for time-consuming and expensive post-manufacturing nondestructive evaluations of such parts and assemblies.
In the telecom industry, ViDeoMAgic enhances the monitoring and maintenance of critical infrastructure such as telecom towers, antennas, satellite dishes, base stations, servers, and cables. Detecting early signs of wear, misalignment, and abnormal vibrations ensures the optimatl performance and longevity of these structures and equipment.
ViDeoMAgic’s non-contact, remote monitoring capabilities reduce the need for frequent physical inspections, particularly in hazardous or hard-to-reach areas. They can assess the impact of seismic events on infrastructure. This high-resolution, real-time vibration analysis technology enables predictive and preventive maintenance, minimizing downtime and ensuring the reliability and efficiency of telecom operations.
ViDeoMAgic’s algorithm can be adapted for a variety of imageries covering widely varying length scales. Some examples of additional applications include remote sensing imagery (satellite images), where the modes of a planet can be identified from the response to seismic and gravitational forces, as well as assessing large-scale urban infrastructure from aerial videos taken after natural disasters.
ViDeoMAgic can also work with much smaller length scales, detecting the dynamic properties of a biological cell by analyzing a video image through a microscope. One day, scientists could use ViDeoMAgic data to diagnose diseases (such as cancer) that could influence a cell’s membrane properties.