A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ROAD ALIGNMENT SURVEY DATA MEASURED USING UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE AND TOTAL STATION

Abstract

Ground surface information is required to determine any road alignment as well as earth work volume calculations. As a conventional practice, land surveying and photogrammetric techniques are the most widely used methods to measure and determine original ground level data. However, these methods are time consuming and labour intensive and more over, reduction of these is also requires Office work. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is a new and alternative technology which can be used for acquiring ground levels and the plan details, including the parcels of land falling in any particular survey number. By using UAV, is possible to collect the land information even though the unfavourable environmental conditions, including during sunset, sunrise, cloudy sky. It is also noted that, the UAV data may be less accurate than photogrammetric mapping, however, UAV data can be used fo preliminary surveys such as reconnaissance surveys during expiring the possibility of alternative highway routes location and the design drawings.

This paper presents a proposed methodology of usage of UAV in conjunction with total station survey for highway location and design purpose, including cost estimates and the times required for both. The objective of this research is to obtain plan views of the proposed route by using UAV for a site and explore the possibility of determination of accurate earth work volume calculations. A comparison study has been conducted between the data collected by UAV and the Total station. The results indicated that the accuracy of the data is satisfactory with a maximum error of 1.0 cm on with reference to the ground control points (GCP‘s), and 4 cm for the rest of the land area considered. Earth work volume comparative study reveals that by UAV with scale factor has 3.36 % error when compared with total station data.