Digital twins of 4 MOOV BTS towers

The context

MOOV Africa Bénin manages a large fleet of BTS mobile sites across the country. For four strategic towers, the operator wanted exhaustive georeferenced documentation: complete inventory of aerial components (antennas, bays, connections) and ground components (frames, energy, cooling), precise azimuth/tilt/height measurements, and 360° virtual tour to enable remote inspection without field travel. The traditional climber-team method would have required several intervention days per site with radio shutdowns and human risk.

Our method

For each tower, a half-day mission combining high-resolution photogrammetric orbit capture and 360° capture at the main equipment levels. ANAC Bénin certified pilot, 4-6 m safety distance to avoid interference with transmitting antennas. No radio shutdown required. Photogrammetric processing under Metashape to generate the navigable textured 3D model. Automatic extraction of azimuths and tilts by geometric analysis of the model. 360° virtual tour production with interactive hotspots pointing to each piece of equipment and its datasheet.

What we delivered

• Navigable textured 3D model of each tower (OBJ, GLB)
• Complete geolocated inventory of aerial and ground components
• Azimuth, tilt and height of each antenna (typical 1° accuracy)
• Interactive 360° virtual tour with hotspots per equipment
• Annotated high-resolution photographs by criticality
• GeoJSON / KML / IFC export for CMMS integration
• Structured PDF report by detected anomaly
• Present-equipment-vs-datasheet differential

The outcome

MOOV now has digital twins remotely usable by maintenance teams, with no field travel needed for recurring audits. Gaps between field inventory and internal datasheets were detected and documented. The virtual tour becomes a training tool for new technicians and a support for site reviews with construction partners. The method is now standardised for rollout across the operator's entire telecom fleet.