Verification of Drone-Acquired Camouflaged Telecommunication Tower Frontal Area Using <i>In Situ</i> Strain and Environmental Measurements

This study introduces a novel methodology to determine the effective area of artificial tree camouflaged telecommunication towers, focusing on the pine tree type, using drone technology and photogrammetry. Accurate frontal area determination is essential for wind load calculations, critical to the structural design of such towers. Conducted on a telecommunication tower in East London, South Africa, the research applied image thresholding to point clouds generated from drone-captured images. The drone-derived frontal area of 23.484 m 2 , when combined with a force coefficient of 0.5 from previous wind tunnel research, resulted in an effective area of 11.742 m 2 , differing by less than 4% from the in-situ strain-derived effective area of 12.10 m 2 utilized as verification. The study addresses the lack of guidelines for designing camouflaged towers and highlights the advantages of drone technology over traditional methods. The results suggest a 47% reduction in the original design's effective area, leading to a 20% reduction in bending moments at the telecommunication tower base. This can result in cost savings by reducing the required structural capacity in future designs or increasing antenna space, which is crucial for 5G deployment. The research offers a practical solution to optimize existing telecommunication towers' capacity, improving efficiency without requiring new infrastructure.