Railroad Tunnel Inspections for Maintenance and Replacement Prioritization Using Untethered Ground Penetrating Radar and LIDAR Capable Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

Conventional railroad tunnel inspections are limited by rail bound, manned vehicle constraints at grade.

The TRB IDEA (Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis) Program's Rail Safety IDEA Final Report 42: Railroad Tunnel Inspections for Maintenance and Replacement Prioritization Using Untethered Ground Penetrating Radar and LIDAR Capable Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) documents the development of an airborne railroad tunnel inspection technology called SATES, which provides comprehensive, 3D, colorized tunnel liner measurements at high resolution to evaluate surface deterioration and subsurface moisture, including difficult access tunnel ceiling evaluation.