Confronted with the ageing of its dikes and with the sometimes degraded conditions of access, the Compagnie Nationale du Rhone, the 2nd producer of hydro electricity in France, wishes to develop new systems of auscultation complementary to the sensors and visual inspections already deployed. The developments of drones, photographic sensors and algorithms of automatic calculations of 3D modelling from multi-stereoscopic images allow today to obtain the fine geometry of linear works via 3D models. At present, with a network of point to the dense ground, the reachable precision is of the order of 5 cm. In order to achieve the desired specifications (+/- 1 cm +/- 3 cm) while minimizing the number of points on the ground, and thus the time field, CNR and the National Institute of Geographic and Forest Information (IGN) have established a partnership resulting in the completion of a research thesis on metrology by light airborne photogrammetry applied to the monitoring of developments dikes. The paper attempts to present the context of the project through the description of the current monitoring of embankments and of the new needs in auscultation of CNR. The following, based on a case study on the dike of the Paliere is introducing advanced photogrammetric methods to mid 2015 to reach centimeter details with only 1 setting point ground for every 100 meters. Located at the interface of the world of Drones, of Research in photogrammetric algorithms and of concessionaires needs, the project will lead to the end of 2015 to an enhanced testing system allowing centimeter monitoring of sensitive embankments areas. The new photogrammetric algorithms written in an open source environment will be open to the entire scientific community and solved problems (high precision geo measures on linear structures) will be used by other distributors on other works with the same geometry.
