Automated Scanning of Concrete Structures for Crack Detection and Assessment Using a Drone

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are becoming more accessible, opening the way to monitoring and inspecting civil infrastructure, even in challenging and dynamic environments. Indeed, using UAV s contributes to safer, faster and more accurate inspections, often beyond what the human being can detect. This paper proposes a path-planning method for an autonomous scan mission using a UAV with an onboard camera for concrete structure inspection. The main objectives are ensuring maximum coverage of the structure and collecting and transmitting images to estimate the extent of damage caused by cracks. The proposed solution is integrated and evaluated using the Software-In-the-Loop Simulation. The results show that the proposed algorithm allows robust scanning with the least energy dissipated by batteries during the mission.