A group of electrical engineering researchers developed an automated system to evaluate the conditions of outdoor polymer insulators. The system is intended to identify the surface conditions of silicone rubber insulators according to IEC standards using image processing and artificial intelligent techniques. A full lab setup was developed and successfully tested at AUS (see the figure below). The students who designed this system won the second prize at the IEEE Myron Zucker award. In a recent IEEE conference publication, Hydro Quebec (the largest utility in Canada) considered the developed technique as a very promising technology to be used for outdoor insulators inspection.