The system provides the following significant benefits:
- Considerable reduction of on-site (underground) working time
- Taking in a massive amount of information in a fraction of the time that using traditional data acquisition techniques would involve
- Real 360º objects scanning due to the drone being able to reach any part of the tunnel from any angle
- A 6 DoF vehicle allows the inspection of horizontal and vertical scenarios, including unreachable locations
- Inspection, mapping and survey tasks can be carried out with a single tool
The outcome of the trials has been used to produce Virtual Reality scenarios, thanks to the participation of Clicks&Links in the project consortium. In addition to the high grade immersion, the system is able to provide a virtual toolkit to allow the user to accomplish a complete tunnel inspection, taking accurate measurements and making notes in a virtual environment.