The Feasibility Study of the Rapid Damage Inspection Technique in Municipal Pole Structure Using UAV

With the development of city size and modern infrastructure, various types of pole facilities were increasingly utilized in the modern cities, such as light pole, power supply tower, wind turbine and traffic sign pole. Meanwhile, such facilities may have some damage issues due to aging and other environmental factors. For ensuring the safety and municipal maintenance, it is essential to proposed some reliable and efficient inspection methods. Especially for the crowded urban area, the traditional inspection method such as manual observation and non-destructive test using the permanent sensors are not applicable. To this end, UAV inspection can be a promising technique to realize rapid evaluation of damage in the pole structure. Therefore, this paper proposed a UAV inspection method associated with computer-based visual displacement and vibration monitoring techniques to rapidly detect damage in the pole structure. Its feasibility has been discussed by methodology discussion and numerical model. Two types of common damage types of lamp poles were selected: the corrosion of lamp poles and the loosening of bolts connection were correlated to the vibration modal. The results provided a theoretical basis for UAV inspection on any municipal structure in the future.