Faculty of Civil Engineering

Grand Prix and Platinum Award at the International Trade Fair for Inventions and Innovations Intarg®2021 was won by the "Unmanned flying platform with a docking module for diagnostics of building structures". The invention was developed by scientists of the Silesian University of Technology under the supervision of an employee of the Department of Structural Engineering, PhD Marcin Górski.

It is a specially equipped drone that can be used for inventory, inspection and diagnostics of hard-to-reach building structures. The platform has a thermal imaging camera attached, and it can also use a vision camera as well as temperature, humidity and pH sensors. This allows for a comprehensive assessment of almost any type of building structure, especially those that are difficult to access. It is worth emphasizing that the platform is equipped with a unique in the world, proprietary diagnostic solution for assessing the quality of the fixation of the structure reinforced with external FRP overlays. The solution presented at the fair is not in fact a single invention, but a set of several solutions developed by the Team and reserved at the Patent Office.

- The platform with the diagnostic module can support the work of e.g. Structural Inspector, who has to assess the structure in hard-to-reach places, e.g. on a bridge span over a river at a height of several dozen meters. Not every structure is equipped with devices that allow you to get there easily. A properly authorized Inspector must get there with many cumbersome tools enabling the inspection and diagnostics of the facility. This traditional method is time-consuming and expensive, and also carries the risk of errors. Our idea is for the Inspector to be handled by our diagnostic platform, which allows us to collect the necessary materials remotely and then process them properly. Therefore, the inspector will have to work on the safety assessment of the structure based on the comprehensive data collected by the device, says PhD Marcin Górski.

The drone can be used in the construction industry - in building and industrial construction, but above all in bridge and infrastructure construction. The solution could also be used in the inventory and assessment of the condition of historic buildings. The drone's equipment allows for remote inspection also at night or in poorly lit places. The data obtained by the platform is integrated in the digital structure model in the BIM environment.

The authors of the invention are: project manager PhD. Marcin Górski from the Faculty of Civil Engineering; PhD, DSc, Eng. Roman Czyba, prof. at SUT from the Faculty of Automatic Control, Electronics and Computer Science; PhD Jarosław Domin from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and professor Ryszard Białecki, PhD, DSc, Eng. Ziemowit Ostrowski, prof. at SUT; PhD, DSc, Eng. Wojciech Adamczyk, prof. at SUT; PhD, DSc, Eng. Grzegorz Przybyła, prof. at SUT; PhD Grzegorz Kruczek from the Faculty of Environmental and Power Engineering.