A portable three-component displacement measurement technique using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and computer vision: A proof of concept

This study proposes a new remote sensing technique to measure three-component (3C) dynamic displacement of three-dimensional (3D) structures. A sensing system with a UAV platform and contact-free sensors (e.g., optical and infrared (IR) cameras) is employed to provide a portable and convenient alternative to conventional approaches that require sensor installation on a structure. The original contributions of this study include (1) integrating both optical and IR cameras with a UAV platform to measure dynamic structural response, and (2) developing new data post-processing algorithms (based on target identification, Direct Linear Transformation, and active stereo vision) to simultaneously extract the 3C displacement of a 3D structure from optical and IR videos, which presents a unique advantage compared to the existing UAV-based displacement measurement techniques that allow the measurements in only one or two directions using optical cameras or laser sensors. The efficacy of the proposed technique is validated through laboratory experiments. This study proposes a new remote sensing technique to measure three-component (3C) dynamic displacement of three-dimensional (3D) structures. A sensing system with a UAV platform and contact-free sensors (e.g., optical and infrared (IR) cameras) is employed to provide a portable and convenient alternative to conventional approaches that require sensor installation on a structure. The original contributions of this study include (1) integrating both optical and IR cameras with a UAV platform to measure dynamic structural response, and (2) developing new data post-processing algorithms (based on target identification, Direct Linear Transformation, and active stereo vision) to simultaneously extract the 3C displacement of a 3D structure from optical and IR videos, which presents a unique advantage compared to the existing UAV-based displacement measurement techniques that allow the measurements in only one or two directions using optical cameras or laser sensors. The efficacy of the proposed technique is validated through laboratory experiments.

Automated summary

This study proposes a new remote sensing technique utilizing a UAV platform and contact-free sensors to measure the three-component dynamic displacement of three-dimensional structures. The integration of optical and IR cameras with a UAV platform, along with the development of new data post-processing algorithms, allows for extracting the 3C displacement of a 3D structure simultaneously from optical and IR videos. The effectiveness of this technique is demonstrated through laboratory experiments.