Drone Based Inspection of Above Ground Storage Tanks. A Multi Criteria Evaluation Approach

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is an emergent technology with the potential to drastically change the landscape of many civil and industrial activities in the near future. A promising field of application is the inspection and monitoring of industrial plants, where UAVs can be a valid alternative to traditional approaches with a better cost-effectiveness and a higher safety level. Although the disruptive innovative potential of this technology is generally recognized, a consistent methodological approach towards the evaluation of the drawbacks and benefits of employing UAVs in critical industrial operations can hardly be found in the current scientific literature. In such context, this paper proposes a framework for assessing the effectiveness of UAV technology in industrial monitoring applications within a structured multi-objective framework. In particular, the paper compares the traditional ground-based inspection services of Above Ground Storage Tank (AST) with UAV based inspection, by means of the well-known Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method considering time, cost and safety criteria. A case study is also proposed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach proposed.