(gentle music)
(drone whirring)
- [Narrator] The Texas Department of Transportation
currently uses drones, also known
as unmanned aircraft systems,
to support several activities including land surveying.
UASs equipped with cameras
or LiDAR can survey an area faster
and safer compared to traditional land surveying techniques.
The Texas Department of Transportation
and researchers with Texas A&M Corpus Christi
have examined the various UAS surveying technologies
to better understand their capabilities
and limitations.
- The beauty of UAS is you can get this data quickly
and efficiently, but there are different ways
we can do that with surveying.
So basically you have one way,
which is like my cell phone using a camera,
and that's photogrammetry. So we can measure with a camera,
we can put it on a drone and fly around.
The other way is using what's called LiDAR
or light detection ranging, which is a laser,
and it scans actively, it shoots a laser out
and maps things three dimensionally.
Both approaches can be done on a drone or UAS,
however, there are certain pros and cons between them.
And so this research led to TxDOT
wanting to better understand their use cases.
When would the photogrammetry approach be better?
When would the LiDAR approach be better
or when can both work?
- Drones were already in use
in TxDOT before this research,
but when gathering aerial images, video
3D models, also known as digital twins,
guidance was kind of needed on what combination
of aerial platforms, remote sensors
and techniques were required to get good results.
- So what we did is we went
all across the great state of Texas,
north Texas, west Texas, south Texas,
east Texas, central Texas.
We went to 10 different TxDOT district project sites.
So they were spread across six different TxDOT districts,
so across different terrain.
What we did is we went to these different
active project sites and would test the technology.
We'd collect data and we would fly a UAS survey using LiDAR,
and then we'd fly one with a camera doing photogrammetry,
and we would compare the technologies
under different use cases.
- [Speaker] They visited bridges,
they scanned the top of them,
they scanned the bottom of them, they scanned the stockpiles
to try to measure the volumes of those stockpiles.
- We actually had the development sites.
We went to RELLIS and Station and others.
We'd kind of run different experiments with ground control,
data collection, different things like that.
And then we did a lot of processing work in the lab,
meaning we take the data,
try different processing techniques,
testing different things as well,
including artificial intelligence methods
to try to automate digital survey workflows with the data.
- They really created a full matrix of land types,
equipment, different infrastructure types
to try to get the best equipment
and technique for the type
of a measurement you're trying to make.
- The biggest finding is definitely UAS technology,
whether using a camera
or a LiDAR sensor is really effective
at quick documentation of 3D data.
I mean, as much information as we can really handle.
What we learned is both technologies
are actually really effective,
but they definitely do have specific use cases
that are better in certain situations than others.
- The primary innovative course
is always safety, just getting the inspector
and the surveyor out of the right of way
and no longer needing to climb bridges or towers.
That's huge, and also it addresses
difficult access areas or line of sight.
You can now see things from on top
that you can't see from the ground.
- The real power with UAS, in my opinion,
and what we've learned from the research
and what we've seen, is just the ability
to collect this data, you know, quickly
and timely and accurately.
So just by TxDOT integrating this technology effectively,
just getting that data will, you know, lead
to better understanding, better update
and information about the right of way about the highways,
and that'll trickle down to the general public
and just safer across the great state of Texas.
And it's a huge place to map and survey.
We don't have enough manpower to get out there
and collect that data, so UAS is a way
that we can get that information
and help continue to monitor our highways
and our roadway infrastructure in Texas.
- [Narrator] For more information
and to find the publications for this project,
please visit the TxDOT Research Library
at the link shown below.