Responsible researcher: Bruno Benevit
Original title: Applications of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in road safety, traffic and highway infrastructure management: Recent advances and challenges
Authors: Fatma Outay, Hanan Abdullah Mengash and Muhammad Adnan
Intervention Location: -
Sample Size: 91 studies
Sector: Transport Economy
Variable of Main Interest: Road traffic
Type of Intervention: Drones
Methodology: Systematic review
Summary
Unmanned aerial vehicles, popularly known as drones, are widely used to monitor and improve various areas. Land transport represents one of the sectors that benefits most from this tool. This article presented a review of the latest advances in drones for the road sector, highlighting three functionalities: improving highway safety, traffic monitoring and infrastructure management. The article discusses advances in computer vision algorithms to extract information from videos and images captured by drones, relating them to improvements in the three main functionalities analyzed in the sector. The authors also discuss the barriers associated with the widespread implementation of drones and possible solutions to overcome them.
The use of drones has become popular in many sectors, allowing tasks to be carried out more safely and at lower environmental costs compared to piloted aviation operations (OUTAY; MENGASH; ADNAN, 2020). In this context, the civil and commercial drone market has grown at a rate of 19% (JOSHI, 2019), being associated with at least 100 thousand jobs in the United States alone. Its uses are diverse, encompassing areas such as real estate, insurance, agriculture, health services and monitoring.
In the transport sector, this tool provides a series of solutions for improvement. In particular, this technology allows the monitoring of traffic and driver behaviors by capturing data collected from cameras attached to drones. This data can be used for a variety of purposes, such as surveillance and monitoring, recognizing traffic violations, helping to manage traffic congestion, optimizing signals, and extracting vehicle trajectories to answer research questions related to risk assessment. accidents, among others.
Noting the advantages of this technology, the United States Congress required the integration of small drones into airspace in 2012. Since then, companies like Amazon have started using them for deliveries. As a result, there has been an expansion in funding and research into drones, especially in the transportation sector. Therefore, it becomes important to understand how drones are used, their advantages, barriers to implementation and areas for improvement.
The methodology of this article focused on reviewing the literature related to the use of drones in three functionalities for the transport sector: road safety, traffic monitoring and management, and road infrastructure management.
Therefore, the authors aimed to gather and compile all relevant materials available online, including journal articles, conferences, policy documents, technical reports, project deliverables, book chapters and web pages. The temporal scope of the article search considered the period from 2000 to 2020 in the SCOPUS and Google Scholar databases. The studies obtained were selected based on their relevance to the specific topic of transportation.
After that, the research literature was summarized in tables, emphasizing the cases where the number of researches was greater and highlighting the evolution of methods and technologies. Patents were not explicitly considered in the review. Furthermore, it is worth noting that the review focused on applications carried out by small drones, generally equipped with propellers, which allow them to take off from any point, rather than fixed-wing drones that require facilities such as take-off runways.
Evidence in the literature on the use of drones for road safety highlights two main areas of application: accident investigation and risk assessment. With regard to accident investigation, technology has enabled significant advances in the reconstruction of scenes from photographs and videos captured by drones. Although in the past there were challenges related to capturing images, such as filming angles and altitude, improvements in drones and image processing software The methodologies for this purpose involve flight planning, data collection and transfer, image processing to generate 3D models and system validation. Despite the contributions, studies point to the need for large-scale implementation and comparisons between different systems to optimize scene reconstruction.
Regarding risk assessment, the use of drones enabled detailed analyzes of vehicle trajectories, overcoming limitations of traditional methods, such as fixed camera angles mounted on physical structures. According to the authors, recent studies have developed algorithms to identify dangerous events and assess collision risks, incorporating measures such as time to collision. Some proposals use multiple drones and vehicular networks for more effective monitoring, while others invest in on-board vision systems for automatic detection of abnormal situations. Additionally, efforts aimed at prioritization were also identified, with the adoption of terrain modeling and assessment of visibility distances in critical areas.
Regarding traffic monitoring and management, the literature shows that drones have played a significant role in traffic monitoring and management, especially in processing videos to extract traffic parameters. Thanks to advances in computer vision algorithms, such as image feature extraction and deep learning , it has become possible to detect vehicles, track their trajectories and calculate parameters such as speed, density and flow. Initial studies used fixed-wing drones, which were large and expensive, but advances in rotating drone technology, which are lighter and more affordable, have expanded their application (OUTAY; MENGASH; ADNAN, 2020). Such devices allowed both image capture and analysis in real time and/or offline .
Drones have also been used in traffic flow analysis, contributing to the study of road geometries, flow behavior and vehicle tracking models. Data extracted from aerial videos enables analyzes such as accepting gaps at intersections, identifying shock waves at traffic lights and evaluating the performance of roundabouts. Furthermore, the application of learning models has made it possible to understand complex traffic behaviors in dynamic and congested urban scenarios. Recent studies also highlight the potential for the mass use of drones (“swarms”) to capture large-scale data, covering complex urban networks and offering new perspectives for understanding congestion and its propagation.
The use of drones in road infrastructure management has been explored in areas such as bridge inspection and pavement condition monitoring. For bridge inspections, drones offer benefits such as time savings, reduced traffic disruptions and reduced need for specialized equipment. Drones equipped with high-resolution cameras and infrared thermography technology can efficiently identify structural damage and monitor the condition of bridges. Advanced image processing methods, such as improved edge detection algorithms and deep neural networks, have demonstrated greater accuracy in detecting cracks and other flaws. In this way, this technology provides a safer and more economical alternative to traditional methods (OUTAY; MENGASH; ADNAN, 2020).
In pavement monitoring, drones are being used to map road surfaces, identify irregularities and assess conditions such as cracks and deformations. Integrating images captured by drones with tools such as ground-penetrating radar and photogrammetry has shown promising results in obtaining detailed data about infrastructure. Additionally, specific algorithms were developed to analyze three-dimensional point clouds, allowing the reconstruction of digital road models and the detection of distress with high precision. Despite advances, the authors highlight that challenges such as the need for rigorous system validation and the technical complexity for large-scale applications still limit the widespread adoption of this technology.
In recent years, regulatory progress, such as those proposed by the European Union, has aimed to harmonize the use of drones and associated technologies in urban contexts. However, large-scale deployment of drones faces significant challenges, especially related to airspace regulations and technological limitations. Regulations often require drones to operate within the operator's field of vision and impose restrictions on weight, flight height and nighttime operations, in addition to requiring specific training and certifications. Although some nations, such as Spain and France, have adopted more flexible standards, the safe integration of drones in urban environments requires advances in fault detection systems and adverse weather conditions. Furthermore, the adoption of technological platforms for air traffic management is necessary, such as the cloud-based system implemented in China.
In addition to regulatory challenges, technological limitations, such as short battery life, also restrict the use of drones. Advances in lithium batteries and hydrogen fuel cells, in addition to the use of solar energy, have been explored to increase flight time. In parallel, route planning and energy optimization algorithms have been developed to maximize mission efficiency. However, issues such as cybersecurity and social acceptance remain challenges, highlighting the need for approaches that balance automation and human interaction in air traffic management.
The evidence from drone-related literature presented in this article helps to understand the challenges and possible solutions for the large-scale adoption of drones, providing support for the formulation of public policies that encourage the safe and efficient use of this technology. Despite technical and regulatory challenges, drones have great potential to increase productivity and reduce costs in the transport sector, significantly transforming the safety, monitoring and management of road infrastructure.
References
JOSHI, D. Drone technology uses and applications for commercial, industrial and military drones in 2020 and the future : Business Insider Intelligence research report preview of Drones for the Enterprise. [sl: sn]. . Accessed on: 13 Jan. 2025.
OUTAY, F.; MENGASH, HA; ADNAN, M. Applications of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in road safety, traffic and highway infrastructure management: Recent advances and challenges. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice , vol. 141, p. 116–129, nov. 2020.
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