Framework for Automated UAV-Based Inspection of External Building Façades

Aging defective building facades pose potential hazards to both public property and personnel safety. The current inspection regime for building facades involves large investments of labour, time and cost, with significant safety concerns when accessing areas at height. Hence, there is urgent need to explore and automate the current inspection process for building facades by incorporating assistive intelligent technologies. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with remote sensing technologies provide an opportunity to automate the inspection process and transform it to become less labour-dependent by incorporating building diagnostics technology. This chapter presents a framework for an automated vision-based building facade diagnosis approach using UAV. The typical challenges of building condition assessment are identified based on a comprehensive review of literature that address this topic. A case study of applying the framework on a real building facade inspection is further conducted to present coherently the detailed steps involved in the workflow, including UAV path planning and data acquisition, image-based 3D reconstruction and defects identification. The presented study serves as a critical reference for adopting automation in a large facade inspection process.