Aerial drone usage has exploded with recent technological advances. Use cases include medical supply delivery, insurance risk assessment, and various forms of infrastructure monitoring. The US transportation industry has been using drones for some roadway condition monitoring, an important economic priority, as the American Trucking Association estimates that 72% of US freight is moved by trucks. Combine that with the ASCE 2021 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure identifying that 43% of our public roadways are in poor or mediocre condition stresses the importance of our road system, which not only impacts commerce but individual drivers. Authors Taraneh Askarzadeh, Raj Bridgelall, and Denver D. Tolliver wanted to understand the current body of knowledge covering the usage of drones for roadway condition monitoring and how that might help address some of these ongoing issues.
In their paper “Drones for Road Condition Monitoring: Applications and Benefits,” the researchers took a deep dive into the current literature on drone usage with the goal of identifying the various applications of D-RCM, quantifying and classifying the benefits, addressing any open challenges, and suggesting potential solutions. They also explored the implications for new theories, management, and impacts to society that arise from D-RCM. Learn more about the emerging themes this study identified and the future for drone usage in the Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part B: Pavements at https://doi.org/10.1061/JPEODX.PVENG-1559. The abstract is below.
Abstract
This systematic literature review explores the increasing use of drones in road condition monitoring (D-RCM), a development poised to enhance inspection efficiency and reduce costs. Surveying 60 articles from a pool of 619 publications between 2014 and 2022, the study unveils cost and time savings, safety enhancements, improved mobility, and reliability as the primary drivers behind D-RCM adoption. D-RCM applications, categorized into areas like condition monitoring, situation assessment, network mapping, asset monitoring, and construction inspection, face challenges such as visual line-of-sight maintenance, limited flight time, payload capacity, and engineering errors. However, potential solutions emerge, including terrain-following features, optimizing battery capacity-weight balance, and employing trained personnel. Importantly, the study reveals considerable cost benefits and impressive return on investment of up to 980%, positioning drones as a promising, cost-effective tool for infrastructure management, with profound implications for theory, management, and societal impacts of D-RCM applications.
Learn more about the benefits and challenges of using drones to examine pavement and other roadway issues in the ASCE Library: https://doi.org/10.1061/JPEODX.PVENG-1559.
