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

Industrial Skyworks （ISW）是一家专门将航空图像应用于各种工程应用的公司，主要用于管道，电力设施和建筑物等基础设施的检查。因此，ISW使用配备可见光和红外相机的无人机（UAV），使用摄影测量技术生成3D地形产品。然后，将这些产品集成到虚拟管理系统中，通过该系统向客户提供技术服务。2015年，ISW与quacimomatique du quacimbec中心（CGQ）合作开展了一个应用研究项目（Engage Grant for colleges）。该项目主要旨在评估ISW的无人机摄影测量系统（UAV-PS）提供的地理参考解决方案的度量质量。此外，还进行了一项有趣的可行性研究，以筛选一种新的实践，即垂直基础设施的无人检查。所获得的结果表明，该公司在这一方向上具有很大的增长潜力。但是，在数据获取、数据处理和服务提供方面发现了若干缺点。因此，ISW已经联系了CGQ，开始为期三年的合作，以便设计和开发一种专门的无人机- ps。该系统将能够克服传统无人机- ps的缺点，对垂直基础设施（如电信塔和建筑立面）进行高精度3D测量和详细检查。该应用研究项目将使ISW能够提高其在航空数据分析领域的领先专业知识，在基础设施检查领域提供独特的技术，并满足各种其他精密工程服务的要求。

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.