Advanced Drone Technology for Bridge Inspection and Monitoring

In an environment without GPS, the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) builds a three-dimensional point cloud map through real-time laser scanning, achieving high-precision positioning, autonomous obstacle avoidance and stable hovering. It can operate even in low-light conditions or complete darkness.

It can identify common diseases such as cracks, spalling, rust, erosion, leakage and bearing displacement, and automatically analyze them through AI algorithms to reduce the rate of missed detections.

Provide quantitative data. For instance, CTI's solution mentions a sevenfold increase in efficiency. Traditionally, inspections that took several hours to a day can be completed by drones within two hours to a day, and there is no need for road closure approval, thus saving traffic control and labor costs. Meanwhile, the cost of using drones is much lower than renting bridge inspection vehicles

According to the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Transport, it is emphasized that airspace reporting is necessary. The pilots must hold corresponding operating licenses from the CAAC, and the operation team must be equipped with professionals in bridge engineering.