Thermal mapping highways and bridges in Czech Republic by UAV

Czech company UPVISION (the largest unmanned aerial system company in the Czech Republic) in collaboration with The Road and Motorway Directorate of the Czech Republic (RSD), conducted in September 2014, thermal mapping and damage control decks on the highway D3, namely the closed sections of the bridges Koberný, Čekanice and 10 km section of highway.

The subjects were using non-destructive methods using thermal imaging differential heating of the deck. Small thermal camera was placed on a special hexacopter and mapping was performed from various heights to determine the needed critical locations and for the control. Everything was carried out under specific conditions (air temperature, road temperature, cloudiness etc.).

Thus, it was revealed damage to the road, the location of the insulation or drainage, which shows different temperature. Every image with overlaps is placed directly in the coordinates and can therefore places that are not visible to the trace and draw their exact location, either on the ground online or on a map.

Mapping from the air can monitor the road more quickly at a high angle shot. In addition,thermal imaging is visible online at the monitor on the ground and it can be easily mark critical points in terrain identified for repair.

The actual movement of the drone is possible to plan and moving is fully automatic or can be manually controlled remotely over the necessary places.

UAV flights were for mapping all found bulges while thermography record their actual shape below the surface, and identification of other bulges that have not yet been found and are not a common sight to see.