Exploring conditions and usefulness of UAVs in the BRAIN Massive Inspections Protocol

In this paper authors conduct a case study analysis by implementing the use of UAVs in the data collection within the BRAIN framework for the failures diagnosis of facades. The main goal is to assess the conditions and usefulness of UAVs in the BRAIN protocol by analyzing the goodness of fit to the fundamental requirements that support this inspection methodology. This preliminary qualitative approach allows the authors to investigate the benefits and potential of this high performance technology as a complement or alternative tool to the initial method, which is based on visual inspections supported, as maximum, by high resolution digital camera images. For the study a sample of facades has been selected in Poland. A full equipped UAV has been collecting the images. Finally, full procedure, collected data and positive and negative issues has been assessed under the perspective of the requirements involved in a multiscale BRAIN inspection. Overall scoring conditions has been determined and, as a conclusion, it can be stated that the use of UAVs for technical inspections in a population based predictive approach is, and even more it will be in the future, an interesting complementary tool for the data collection.