Non-Contact Vibration-Based Damage Detection of Civil Structures Using a Cost-Effective Autonomous UAV
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arXiv
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866914585561268224 |
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| author | Becerril, Javier Vargas, Maximiliano Herrera, Jennifer Gutierrez, Joanna Rios, Jorge Amjadian, Mohsen Tarawneh, Constantine Yang, Jinghao Lu, Qi |
| author_facet | Becerril, Javier Vargas, Maximiliano Herrera, Jennifer Gutierrez, Joanna Rios, Jorge Amjadian, Mohsen Tarawneh, Constantine Yang, Jinghao Lu, Qi |
| contents | This paper presents a non-contact approach for vibration-based structural damage detection using an autonomous and customized cost-effective unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Vibration signals are extracted from video recordings through vision-based motion tracking to identify shifts in natural frequencies indicative of structural degradation. A laboratory-scale frame structure is evaluated under healthy and simulated-damage conditions. The proposed system is validated through an experimental study involving two smartphones, a USB camera, and a custom-built low-cost UAV equipped with an onboard camera and an autonomous alignment system for operation in GPS-denied environments. The displacement time is extracted and analyzed in the frequency domain and compared to reference measurements from contact accelerometers and a finite element model. Experimental results show that all platforms successfully capture the fundamental frequency and its shift due to damage. Although the UAV exhibits slightly higher errors (up to 5.7%) due to platform-induced disturbances and sensing limitations, it reliably detects damage-induced frequency changes. Compared to commercial UAV systems, the proposed platform achieves comparable inspection performance at significantly lower cost. These results demonstrate that low-cost autonomous UAVs provide a practical, flexible, and scalable solution for structural health monitoring, particularly in scenarios where contact-based sensing is impractical. The findings also support the potential for the deployment of multiple cooperative UAVs to further enhance inspection coverage and robustness. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_21914 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Non-Contact Vibration-Based Damage Detection of Civil Structures Using a Cost-Effective Autonomous UAV Becerril, Javier Vargas, Maximiliano Herrera, Jennifer Gutierrez, Joanna Rios, Jorge Amjadian, Mohsen Tarawneh, Constantine Yang, Jinghao Lu, Qi Robotics This paper presents a non-contact approach for vibration-based structural damage detection using an autonomous and customized cost-effective unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Vibration signals are extracted from video recordings through vision-based motion tracking to identify shifts in natural frequencies indicative of structural degradation. A laboratory-scale frame structure is evaluated under healthy and simulated-damage conditions. The proposed system is validated through an experimental study involving two smartphones, a USB camera, and a custom-built low-cost UAV equipped with an onboard camera and an autonomous alignment system for operation in GPS-denied environments. The displacement time is extracted and analyzed in the frequency domain and compared to reference measurements from contact accelerometers and a finite element model. Experimental results show that all platforms successfully capture the fundamental frequency and its shift due to damage. Although the UAV exhibits slightly higher errors (up to 5.7%) due to platform-induced disturbances and sensing limitations, it reliably detects damage-induced frequency changes. Compared to commercial UAV systems, the proposed platform achieves comparable inspection performance at significantly lower cost. These results demonstrate that low-cost autonomous UAVs provide a practical, flexible, and scalable solution for structural health monitoring, particularly in scenarios where contact-based sensing is impractical. The findings also support the potential for the deployment of multiple cooperative UAVs to further enhance inspection coverage and robustness. |
| title | Non-Contact Vibration-Based Damage Detection of Civil Structures Using a Cost-Effective Autonomous UAV |
| topic | Robotics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.21914 |