P K Garg

This book provides an overview of the basic concepts and components of UAVs, the various sensors used, architecture of autonomous UAVs, communication tools and devices to acquire real-time data from UAVs, the software needed to analyze the UAV data, required rules and regulations to fly UAVs, various application areas (e.g. construction, oil and gas, mining, agriculture, forestry, search and rescue, surveillance, transportation, disaster, logistics), and future areas of research which is needed to handle relevant challenges.

Maintenance of pavements is an important aspect for the road authorities all over the world. The first step towards maintenance is pavement evaluation. Pavement could be evaluated through different types of distress experienced, such as cracking, disintegration and surface deformation. Pavement surface distresses, such as cracks and pothole are visible imperfections on the surface of the pavements. At present, there are various methods for conducting distress surveys, recording and analysing distress survey data. Traditionally, pavement condition data are gathered by human inspectors who walk or drive along the road to assess the distresses and subsequently produce reports, but it is costly and time-consuming, and endangers the safety of the personnel involved. Also, the large differences exist between the actual condition and evaluation results because of the subjectivity of the evaluation process. This work proposed methodologies for automatic assessment of pavement surface distresses using geospatial tools and soft computing techniques.