EARTHWORK VOLUMETRICS WITH UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Abstract

The recent evolution of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) as measuring instruments has become attractive for many surveying applications in civil engineering including the volumetric computations of earthworks in the construction of a highway. The application of softcopy photogrammetry to UAV acquired imagery has the potential to reduce data acquisition costs, time and with suitable accuracy for earthworks mapping and volumetrics. Their performance, however, is not well understood for these applications. This investigation tests the ability of the UAVs and photogrammetric software to generate volumes for the layers of material used in road construction, as well as to analyse their accuracies and limitations. Specifically, this study assesses the feasibility of UAV-based surveying in generating volumes for general earthworks in highway/road construction. Additionally, the study compares the performance of UAV-based surveying to that of Total Station surveying. Performance is evaluated along the required time for image acquisition and generating the final products, the required personnel and overall cost of survey. A segment of the Churchill Roosevelt Extension to Manzanilla was used in the assessment.