FIRST APPROACH TO UAV-BASED CONTACT INSPECTION: A SMART PAYLOAD FOR NAVIGATION IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF STRUCTURES

. Many inspection tasks of structures are already carried out by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Most of these inspections consist of using payloads for close range remote sensing purposes (i.e. digital cameras, thermal or LiDAR sensors). In all these inspection tasks the UAV system does not need to be close to the structure and typically the GPS coverage is good to perform mission navigation. In this paper, a smart payload developed for...