Cell Tower Inspection Drone System

VEA Systems delivers an end-to-end AWS cloud platform for automated drone-based cell tower inspection. AI-powered defect detection, structured findings, and a real-time dashboard replace costly manual climbs and inconsistent visual audits.

AWS Rekognition Bedrock Nova Vision Step Functions
AI Defect Detection

Custom ML models for antennas, cables, and structural anomalies.

Automated Pipeline

Image upload triggers full inspection analysis with no manual steps.

Nova Vision AI

Amazon Bedrock foundation model for advanced image reasoning.

Dashboard & Reports

React dashboard with annotated findings, severity levels, and site maps.

7-Stage Inspection Lifecycle

From site registration to follow-up actions, every step is tracked, automated, and auditable.

1 Site Registration

Register tower sites, upload RFDS design documents, and define expected antenna and equipment configurations per sector.

2 Inspection Planning

Network engineers coordinate flight paths, schedule drone pilots, and confirm site access for each inspection run.

3 Drone Flight

Pilots capture high-resolution imagery (12MP+) across all tower sectors. EXIF data and GPS coordinates are embedded automatically.

4 Image Upload

Images upload via secure transfer. EventBridge fires immediately, kicking off the inspection pipeline.

5 AI Analysis

Microservices validate, run custom vision models, compare detections against site config, and persist structured findings to the database.

6 Results Review

Field technicians review annotated images and severity-ranked findings in the React dashboard. Bounding boxes highlight every detected issue.

7 Follow-up Actions

Findings drive maintenance tickets, re-inspection scheduling, and network remediation. All actions are logged against the site record.

Full audit trail from flight to fix. Every stage is timestamped and stored with severity indexing.
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AI & Computer Vision Stack

Two complementary AI layers cover both trained defect classification and open-ended visual reasoning.

Rekognition Custom Labels

Trained Defect Classification

Custom-trained computer vision models detect specific defect types with bounding box precision. The active model is managed in the database and hot-swappable without a redeploy.

  • Antenna presence and count verification
  • Cable management defects and loose bundling
  • Remote radio unit (RRU) configuration checks
  • Bird nest and obstruction detection
  • Deviation from RFDS expected configuration
Amazon Bedrock Nova Vision

Foundation Model Visual Reasoning

Nova Vision runs as a second analysis pass, applying open-ended visual reasoning across full tower images and video frames. Catches anomalies that fall outside trained defect categories.

  • Frame-by-frame video inspection analysis
  • Structured finding aggregation across frames
  • Site context parsing from image metadata
  • Severity scoring with natural language rationale
  • 3D point cloud integration via NVIDIA Omniverse

Defects We Find

Findings from real Circet USA tower inspections across Philadelphia-area sites on Ericsson L600 infrastructure.

HIGH Severity

Missing or Miscount Equipment

Fewer antennas or RRUs detected than the RFDS specifies. Signals active equipment is offline, removed, or obscured. Flagged as high severity and surfaced immediately in the dashboard.

MEDIUM Severity

Excess Equipment Detected

More equipment found than the expected configuration. May indicate unauthorized additions, legacy hardware not removed, or misidentification. Logged for engineer review.

MEDIUM Severity

Cable Management Defects

Loose bundling, unsecured cable trays, and dense cable tangles identified at Norriton Sector 80 and Sector 320. Left unaddressed these create RF interference and maintenance risk.

HIGH Severity

Bird Nest Obstructions

Active bird nest detected at Norriton lower platform. Obstructions block antenna apertures and cause signal degradation. Drone imagery enables safe identification without a tower climb.

INFO

Configuration Compliance

Sites confirmed as matching their RFDS design specs are logged as compliant. Apollo 3-sector lattice tower and all three sectors verified against expected panel antenna counts.

INSIGHT

3D Structural Analysis

Point cloud processing via AWS Fargate generates 3D tower models for structural anomaly detection and depth-aware equipment mapping, with NVIDIA Omniverse visualization support.

Cloud Architecture

Fully serverless inspection pipeline built on AWS. Scales to any number of sites at approximately $80/month for a proof-of-concept footprint.

EventBridge

Image upload triggers the inspection pipeline automatically via event-driven routing across purpose-built storage areas.

Step Functions

Orchestrates the 4-stage inspection chain: validate, detect, compare, persist. Each step is independently retryable with full logging.

Database

Findings stored with severity and use-case indexes for fast dashboard queries. Also manages active model version, training state, and site metadata.

Multi-Environment CI/CD

Feature development, staging, and production environments across dedicated cloud accounts. Git-based CI/CD promotes builds from feature development through to production.

Inspection Pipeline Flow

Image Upload EventBridge Step Functions validate_image run_detectors nova_compare persist_findings Database + Results

Live Deployment

In production for Circet USA, one of North America's largest telecom infrastructure services companies.

Circet USA

Production system live for Circet USA. Inspecting Ericsson L600 infrastructure across the Philadelphia market area with authenticated access.

Environment: Production
Client: Circet USA

Feature Development

Ongoing development and integration testing in a dedicated cloud environment. New AI capabilities and dashboard features are validated here before production promotion.

Environment: Feature Development
Isolated from production data

React Dashboard

Built with React 18, TypeScript, Vite, Tailwind CSS, and shadcn/ui. Site maps, annotated image viewers, finding severity filters, RFDS document management, and ML training workflows.

Cloud-hosted with CDN delivery
Microservices backend

Get in Touch

Ready to replace manual tower climbs with AI-powered drone inspection? Tell us about your sites and inspection requirements.

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