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IPOD Abstract for presentation (Poster or Podium) with a Paper in the Conference Proceedings

Uncrewed Aerial Systems

1626204 - Use of Synthetic Aperture Radar and Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle for Assessing Pavement Condition

Monday, June 17, 2024
2:30 PM - 2:45 PM ET
Room: 215
Abstract:

The long-term monitoring of transportation infrastructure assets such as pavements, highway embankments, earth retaining systems, at a lower cost, and with short mobilization time are of interest to owners and stakeholders. Due to the significant improvement in spatial and temporal resolution of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) remote sensing systems in the past decade as well as the drastic reduction in the price of data acquisition, SAR has now become a viable method to provide economic and rapid condition assessment of transportation assets. This paper presents an example of this through a case study on the inspection and characterization of a pavement surface based on the amplitude of backscattering of a X-band radar. In-situ characterization of the test site was first performed using aerial photogrammetry techniques with Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The pavement features extracted from the digital twin model, created using photogrammetry, were compared with radar cross section of the pavement. The results show that problematic areas evident during in-situ characterization can be delineated and quantified based on the normalized radar cross-section of the pavement surface. Overall, the outcome of this research exhibits the potential of SAR for future transportation asset management undertakings and can be of significant interest to state engineers and practitioners.

Learning Objectives:

Attendees can expect to learn the following from this session:
  • Upon completion, participant will be able to understand the use of high-resolution orbital SAR sensors and UAVs in pavement condition assessment
  • Upon completion, participant will be able to list advantage of using high-resolution orbital SAR sensors and UAV's for pavement condition assessment
  • Upon completion, participant will be able to define the limitations of using high-resolution orbital SAR sensors and UAV's for pavement condition monitoring