An Improved Deep Convolutional Neural Network-Based Autonomous Road Inspection Scheme Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Recent advancements in the field of machine learning (ML) provide opportunity to conduct research on autonomous devices for a variety of applications. Intelligent decision-making is a critical task for self-driving systems. An attempt is made in this study to use a deep learning (DL) approach for the early detection of road cracks, potholes, and the yellow lane. The accuracy is not sufficient after training with the default model. To enhance accuracy, a convolutional neural network (CNN) model with 13 convolutional layers, a softmax layer as an output layer, and two fully connected layers (FCN) are constructed. In order to achieve the deeper propagation and to prevent saturation in the training phase, mish activation is employed in the first 12 layers with a rectified linear unit (ReLU) activation function. The upgraded CNN model performs better than the default CNN model in terms of accuracy. For the varied situation, a revised and enriched dataset for road cracks, potholes, and the yellow lane is created. The yellow lane is detected and tracked in order to move the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) autonomously by following yellow lane. After identifying a yellow lane, the UAV performs autonomous navigation while concurrently detecting road cracks and potholes using the robot operating system within the UAV. The performance model is benchmarked using performance measures, such as accuracy, sensitivity, F1-score, F2-score, and dice-coefficient, which demonstrate that the suggested technique produces better outcomes.