UBRISTES: UAV-based building rehabilitation with visible and thermal infrared remote sensing

Abstract

Building inspection is a critical issue for designing rehabilitation projects, which are recently gaining importance for environmental and energy efficiency reasons. Image sensors on-board unmanned aerial vehicles are a powerful tool for building inspection, given the diversity and complexity of façades and materials, and mainly, their vertical disposition. The UBRISTES (UAV-based Building Rehabilitation with vISible and ThErmal infrared remote Sensing) system is proposed as an effective solution for façade inspection in urban areas, validating a method for the simultaneous acquisition of visible and thermal aerial imaging applied to the detection of the main types of façade anomalies/pathologies, and showcasing its possibilities using a first principles analysis. Two public buildings have been considered for evaluating the proposed system. UBRISTES is ready to use in building inspection and has been proved as a useful tool in the design of rehabilitation projects for inaccessible, complex building structures in the context of energy efficiency. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016.