UAV-Based GPR Systems for Infrastructure Monitoring

Mini-drone-based radar imaging is a rapidly growing research area that is gaining significant attention thanks to its potential practical applications. The focus of this chapter is on the challenges involved in the design of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)-based ground penetrating radar (GPR) systems to characterize the conditions of reinforced concrete structures. The chapter starts with a brief chronological review of down-looking radar imaging systems mounted on mini-drones that have been proposed so far. Then, the attention is focused on the main hardware components of UAV-based GPR systems and on a prototype designed as part of the “Monitoring Bridges with Drones” project. The main issues related to data processing are also discussed, and microwave tomography approaches recently proposed in literature are reviewed. Finally, the main challenges arising in bridge monitoring via UAV based GPR are traced, and some preliminary results are presented.