Date of Award

2020

Degree Name

Information Systems

College

College of Business

Type of Degree

M.S.

Document Type

Thesis

First Advisor

Dr. Wael Zatar, Committee Chairperson

Second Advisor

Dr. Haroon Malik

Third Advisor

Dr. Jamil M Chaudri

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are being employed in a multitude of civil applications owing to their ease of use, low maintenance, affordability, high-mobility, and ability to hover. UAVs are being utilized for real-time monitoring of road traffic, providing wireless coverage, remote sensing, search and rescue operations, delivery of goods, security and surveillance, precision agriculture, and civil infrastructure inspection. They are the next big revolution in technology and civil infrastructure, and it is expected to dominate more than $45 billion market value. The thesis surveys the UAV assisted Structural Health Monitoring or SHM literature over the last decade and categorize UAVs based on their aerodynamics, payload, design of build, and its applications. Further, the thesis presents the payload product line to facilitate the SHM tasks, details the different applications of UAVs exploited in the last decade to support civil structures, and discusses the critical challenges faced in UASHM applications across various domains. Finally, the thesis presents two artificial neural network-based structural damage detection models and conducts a detailed performance evaluation on multiple platforms like edge computing and cloud computing.

Subject(s)

Drone aircraft.

Structural health monitoring.

Machine learning -- Research.

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