Applications of UAVs in Civil Infrastructure

Greenwood, William; Lynch, Jerome P.; Zekkos, Dimitrios

doi:10.1061/(asce)is.1943-555x.0000464

Cited by 201 publications

(131 citation statements)

References 115 publications

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“…The literature [5,[24][25][26][27][28][29][30] has shown that sUAS are capable of aiding projects related to the earth's surface; however, limited studies are available relating to their accuracy in regards to conventional methods, especially GNSS-RTK and TLS surveys. The accuracy results achieved in the study are superior to those found in current literature that aim to assess the accuracy of sUAS for topographic mapping [24][25][26][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…sUAS were initially known for their role in military applications as "drones," but the use of sUAS in civilian applications, such as construction, is rapidly growing [4]. sUAS have been deemed useful for tasks varying from post-disaster reconnaissance [5] to construction safety applications [6]. Rather than risking lives and sending surveyors into compromised structures after a disaster, sUAS are able to remotely detect damage at a safe distance [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Advancements made in digital photogrammetry software have revolutionized the field of sUAS data collection and analysis, allowing engineers and scientists to generate high-resolution topographic maps with low-cost optical cameras [22]. This software has the ability to produce orthorectified imagery maps (orthophotos), point clouds and digital surface models (DSM) at spatial resolutions in the order of centimeters [1,23]-a quality vital to topographic mapping applications [5,[24][25][26][27][28][29][30].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Comparing sUAS Photogrammetrically-Derived Point Clouds with GNSS Measurements and Terrestrial Laser Scanning for Topographic Mapping

Mora

Suleiman

Chen

et al. 2019

Drones

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Interest in small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) for topographic mapping has significantly grown in recent years, driven in part by technological advancements that have made it possible to survey small- to medium-sized areas quickly and at low cost using sUAS aerial photography and digital photogrammetry. Although this approach can produce dense point clouds of topographic measurements, they have not been tested extensively to provide insights on accuracy levels for topographic mapping. This case study examines the accuracy of a sUAS-derived point cloud of a parking lot located at the Citizens Bank Arena (CBA) in Ontario, California, by comparing it to ground control points (GCPs) measured using global navigation satellite system (GNSS) data corrected with real-time kinematic (RTK) and to data from a terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) survey. We intentionally chose a flat surface due to the prevalence of flat scenes in sUAS mapping and the challenges they pose for accurately deriving vertical measurements. When the GNSS-RTK survey was compared to the sUAS point cloud, the residuals were found to be on average 18 mm and −20 mm for the horizontal and vertical components. Furthermore, when the sUAS point cloud was compared to the TLS point cloud, the average difference observed in the vertical component was 2 mm with a standard deviation of 31 mm. These results indicate that sUAS imagery can produce point clouds comparable to traditional topographic mapping methods and support other studies showing that sUAS photogrammetry provides a cost-effective, safe, efficient, and accurate solution for topographic mapping.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Comparing sUAS Photogrammetrically-Derived Point Clouds with GNSS Measurements and Terrestrial Laser Scanning for Topographic Mapping

Mora

Suleiman

Chen

et al. 2019

Drones

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“…assessment and monitoring of major fires), postdisaster damage assessments and monitoring aspects of humanitarian crises, such as the growth of refugee camps (Turner et al 2012(Turner et al , 2016Javernick et al 2014;Clapuyt et al 2016). There are two main types of UAV, rotary or fixed-wing (Greenwood et al 2019). Fixed-wing UAVs provide a wider coverage on an equivalent battery, whereas rotary UAVs are better suited for low-level flying and hovering, especially in constrained areas such as Dominica's mountainous terrain and steep-sided valleys.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low-cost UAV surveys of hurricane damage in Dominica: automated processing with co-registration of pre-hurricane imagery for change analysis

et al. 2020

Self Cite

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In 2017, hurricane Maria caused unprecedented damage and fatalities on the Caribbean island of Dominica. In order to 'build back better' and to learn from the processes causing the damage, it is important to quickly document, evaluate and map changes, both in Dominica and in other high-risk countries. This paper presents an innovative and relatively low-cost and rapid workflow for accurately quantifying geomorphological changes in the aftermath of a natural disaster. We used unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surveys to collect aerial imagery from 44 hurricane-affected key sites on Dominica. We processed the imagery using structure from motion (SfM) as well as a purpose-built Python script for automated processing, enabling rapid data turnaround. We also compared the data to an earlier UAV survey undertaken shortly before hurricane Maria and established ways to coregister the imagery, in order to provide accurate change detection data sets. Consequently, our approach has had to differ considerably from the previous studies that have assessed the accuracy of UAV-derived data in relatively undisturbed settings. This study therefore provides an original contribution to UAV-based research, outlining a robust aerial methodology that is potentially of great value to post-disaster damage surveys and geomorphological change analysis. Our findings can be used (1) to utilise UAV in post-disaster change assessments; (2) to establish ground control points that enable before-and-after change analysis; and (3) to provide baseline data reference points in areas that might undergo future change. We recommend that countries which are at high risk from natural disasters develop capacity for low-cost UAV surveys, building teams that can create pre-disaster baseline surveys, respond within a few hours of a local disaster event and provide aerial photography of use for the damage assessments carried out by local and incoming disaster response teams.

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“…Researches for the various shapes of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been performed continuously because of the variety of UAVs' application areas: reconnaissance, delivery, rescue, monitoring, etc. [1][2][3][4]. Among the several types of UAVs, spherical UAVs (SUAVs) do not require using multiple rotors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Center-of-Gravity Variation-Driven Spherical UAV System and Its Control Law

Kim

Yang

2020

International Journal of Aerospace Engineering

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Most of the spherical unmanned aerial vehicles (SUAVs) use control surfaces, which are functions of aileron and an elevator, to generate control torque. The work proposes a new conceptual design of an SUAV system controlled through center-of-gravity (CG) variations with its path-tracking control law designed for the system. Compared to the one using control surfaces, the concept suggested is beneficial in the aspect of the expandability of building lighter and smaller SUAVs, especially. A CG variation principle by actuating a pendulum type of a moving part is considered as a methodology for both translational and rotational motion control of an SUAV. Since variations of the moment-of-inertia (MOI) elements which resulted from the motion of the moving part affect the performance of the suggested method, the variations of MOI analysis are performed for all angular ranges of the moving part. As a result, certain angular ranges for the moving part to prevent the degradation of the path-tracking performance by the effect of the MOI changes are found. By considering the findings, numerical studies are performed for hovering, ascent, descent, and horizontal tracking missions. The applicability of the proposed SUAV system and the corresponding controller to achieve the path-tracking missions is demonstrated through the numerical simulation.

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Applications of UAVs in Civil Infrastructure

Cited by 201 publications

References 115 publications

Comparing sUAS Photogrammetrically-Derived Point Clouds with GNSS Measurements and Terrestrial Laser Scanning for Topographic Mapping

Comparing sUAS Photogrammetrically-Derived Point Clouds with GNSS Measurements and Terrestrial Laser Scanning for Topographic Mapping

Low-cost UAV surveys of hurricane damage in Dominica: automated processing with co-registration of pre-hurricane imagery for change analysis

Center-of-Gravity Variation-Driven Spherical UAV System and Its Control Law

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