Application of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Technology on Damage Inspection of Reinforced Concrete Structures

Abstract

As for the damaged buildings that suffered a destructive earthquake, or old buildings after a long time of service, damage inspection is essential to evaluate the building condition as well as assess the long-term capacity for further use. In the current practice, damage inspection is always performed visually by trained investigators or skilled engineers by human hands. However, it is time-consuming, highly costly, and risky for inspectors in the fieldwork, which leads to a need to develop an appropriate damage inspection as the first action to be taken with high effectiveness, efficiency, and accuracy to provide the most basic information for all further procedures for building condition assessment. In this present study, to explore and develop future potentials of newly-developed technology to inspect the damages to building structures, the application and usage of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that are rapidly developed in recent years have been investigated. First, a recommended building inspection workflow using UAV was proposed by applying to an actual building structure. As well, knowledge and considerations for practical application learned during the inspection test have been presented. Next, the effectiveness of using the UAV platform in building damage inspection was evaluated in terms of image quality, damage detection and quantification. Furthermore, a comparison with the conventional inspection approach is consequently given for understanding the advantages and limitations of the UAV-aimed damage inspection approach. In the end, discussions composing recommendations, existing challenges, and future directions to address the approach into further practical application are also suggested herein.