Identification and quantification of concrete cracks using image analysis and machine learning

Sammanfattning: Nowadays inspections of civil engineering structures are performed manually at close range to be able to assess damages. This requires specialized equipment that tends to be expensive and to produce closure of the bridge. Furthermore, manual inspections are time-consuming and can often be a source or risk for the inspectors. Moreover, manual inspections are subjective and highly dependent on the state of mind of the inspector which reduces the accuracy of this kind of inspections. Image-based inspections using cameras or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) combined with image processing have been used to overcome the challenges of traditional manual inspections. This type of inspection has also been studied with the use of machine learning algorithms to improve the detection of damages, in particular cracks. This master’s thesis presents an approach that combines different aspects of the inspection, from the data acquisition, through the crack detection to the quantification of essential parameters. To do this, both digital cameras and a UAV have been used for data acquisition. A convolutional neural network (CNN) for the identification of cracks is used and subsequently, different quantification methods are explored to determine the width and length of the cracks. The results are compared with control measures to determine the accuracy of the method. The results present low to no false negatives when using the CNN to identify cracks. The quantification of the identified cracks is performed obtaining the highest accuracy estimation for 0.2mm cracks.