Assessment and Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Civil Structural Health Monitoring

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or UAVs can be employed in a multitude of civil applications owing to their ease of use, low maintenance, affordability, high-mobility, and ability to hover. Such vehicles are being utilized for real-time monitoring of road traffic, providing wireless coverage, remote sensing, search and rescue operations, delivery of goods, security and surveillance, precision agriculture, and civil infrastructure inspection. They are the next big revolution in technology and civil infrastructure is expected to dominate their more than $45 Billion worth market. This paper surveys the UAV assisted Structural Health Monitoring or SHM literature over the last decade and categorizes UAVs based on their aerodynamics. Further, it presents the payload product line to facilitate the SHM tasks, details the different applications of UAVs exploited in the last decade to support civil structures and discusses the key challenges faced in its application across various domains.