Impedance-based non-destructive testing method combined with unmanned aerial vehicle for structural health monitoring of civil infrastructures

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, are a rising topic in remote sensing technologies for structural health monitoring. With technology advancement in cameras, the visual inspection method using drones is gaining much attention in the field of civil engineering. However, although visual inspection methods are feasible for finding cracks in structures, the limitations of image processing for finding internal damage or small defects cannot be ignored. To overcome this problem, a possible application concept of UAV, combined with a vibration-based non-destructive health monitoring method, is proposed. The idea is for the drone to temporarily attach the piezoelectric transducer onto a specific region where excitation and data acquisition occurs simultaneously. This eliminates the need for a structure to be covered with hundreds of sensors for monitoring, as this concept uses a single piezoelectric transducer for monitoring a structure. The proposed work offers new areas of research by converging UAV with a vibration-based method, as associated problems are required to be solved.