Development of an autonomous aerial photogrammetry system for metric inspection of vertical infrastructures

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Industrial Skyworks (ISW) is a company specialized in applying aerial imagery for various engineering applications, mainly the inspection of infrastructures such as pipelines, electric utilities and buildings. Accordingly, ISW uses an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with visible and infrared cameras, to generate 3D topographic products using photogrammetric techniques. These products are, then, integrated to a virtual management system, through which technical services are offered to its clients. In 2015, ISW collaborated with Centre de géomatique du Québec (CGQ) within an applied research project (Engage Grant for colleges). The project mainly aimed at assessing the metric quality of the geo-referencing solutions provided by ISW's UAV-photogrammetry system (UAV-PS). Additionally, an interesting feasibility study was conducted to screen a new practice, unmanned inspection of vertical infrastructures. The obtained results revealed a great growth potential for the company in this direction. However, several shortcomings in terms of data acquisition, data processing and service provision were identified. Therefore, ISW has contacted CGQ to start this three-year collaboration in order to design and develop a specialized UAV-PS. This system will be able to overcome the shortcomings of a conventional UAV-PS to perform high-precision 3D measurements and detailed inspection of vertical infrastructures, such as telecommunication towers and building facades. This applied-research project will allow ISW to improve its leading expertise in the field of aerial data analytics, to offer a unique technology in domain of infrastructure inspection, and to meet the requirements of a large variety of other precision-engineering services.