Bridge Inspecting With Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, R&D [Supporting Dataset]

Details

• Creators:
  Darby, Paul ; Gopu, Vijaya
• Corporate Creators:
  Transportation Consortium of South-Central States (Tran-SET) University Transportation Center for Region 6 ; University of Louisiana at Lafayette ; Louisiana State University (Baton Rouge, La.)
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology ; United States. Department of Transportation. University Transportation Centers (UTC) Program
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Bridges Data Collection Data Files UAVs Bridge Inspection Drones Field Tests Inspection Recommendations Regulations Surveys
• Publication/ Report Number:
  17STLSU11
• Resource Type:
  Dataset
• Geographical Coverage:
  Louisiana;United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  Transportation Consortium of South-Central States
• Abstract:
  The project achieves through research including literature, on site interviews, and experimentation: 1) a recommendation for a UAV-based system to practically assist in routine bridge inspection work in the State of Louisiana, 2) the identification and description of advantages, disadvantages, and limitations in the use of UAVs for routing bridge inspection work in Louisiana, and 3) provided recommendations for future work. The Yuneec H520 aircraft and its E90 camera are recommended, as is the need for a boat to be included as part of the system. The recommended system has advantages in reaching portions of the bridge that are difficult to reach by human inspectors and includes sufficient image resolution to assist the bridge inspection process. A disadvantage though, is that of the overburden of regulations both from the FAA and for getting permission to inspect a bridge using a UAV. These regulations my render negligible, any gains in efficiency perceived in the use of UAVs for bridge inspection. Also, the UAV is described by the project as an assistance tool for the manual bridge inspection process and cannot replace the needed work of bridge inspectors, as it has limitations. For example, the UAV cannot perform inspections beneath the bridge deck since it may lose its GPS navigation reference. Likewise, it cannot see beneath the surface to tell of concrete components have subsurface cracks or timbers might be hollow. These tests are still the domain of manual bridge inspection. The project provided recommendations with respect to changes in how inspections should be done using the UAV, i.e. in the pre-inspection phase, needed field studies using the UAV, needed economics alternative-tradeoffs studies, and recommendations for augmenting the aircraft and its instruments. The Second phase, i.e. the Implementation Phase, will utilize the information and educational fruits of the technical research phase for tutorials, seminars and to facilitate feedback surveys with engineering firms, the LADOTD, engineering societies, and students. PPTX files are presentation files created using Microsoft PowerPoint. These files can be used using Microsoft PowerPoint or a free program such as Google Slides.
• Content Notes:
  National Transportation Library (NTL) Curation Note: As this dataset is preserved in a repository outside U.S. DOT control, as allowed by the U.S. DOT's Public Access Plan (https://doi.org/10.21949/1503647) Section 7.4.2 Data, the NTL staff has performed NO additional curation actions on this dataset. The current level of dataset documentation is the responsibility of the dataset creator. NTL staff last accessed this dataset at its repository URL on 2022-11-11. If, in the future, you have trouble accessing this dataset at the host repository, please email NTLDataCurator@dot.gov describing your problem. NTL staff will do its best to assist you at that time.
• Format:
  ZIP
• Funding:
  69A3551747106
• Collection(s):
  University Transportation Centers
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/65517/dot_65517_DS1.bin
• File Type:
  [BIN ]