UAV in Construction Site Monitoring and Concrete Strength Estimation

Infrastructure is one of the main pillars and parameter for India's overall development. Monitoring and evaluation of the construction activities and concrete elements at early ages is necessary to increase structural stability and durability. There is a need for sophisticated technologies for real-time monitoring of construction activities for visually updating the progress in construction, which facilitates for further planning of the project. This can be achieved only by advanced tools, unmanned vehicles and computer vision-based techniques. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) coupled with Remote Sensing System helps in accurate, time and cost-effective monitoring process in all phases of construction activities. The main objective of this paper is to design a semi-automated and practical Remote Sensing Non-Destructive Method (RSNDT) for monitoring the early age concrete elements. A UAV equipped with visible and Thermal Infrared Remote Sensing system is proposed as an effective solution for concrete work inspection in early ages of construction. The visible band images are used for updating and checking the dimensional accuracy of freshly constructed structural elements. The NIR band is used to detect concrete strength-related aspects. Thermography principles are applied on laboratory-cured fresh concrete specimens for mapping the temperature emission through hydration process, that is directly proportional to the strength attainment of concrete. The laboratory test results are used to correlate with UAV thermal images of site-cured concrete elements and estimate the strength. This method facilitates in rapid and real-time monitoring of site to report the condition of structural elements at early ages of construction.