Vision-based Structural Inspection using Multiscale Deep Convolutional Neural Networks

Current methods of practice for inspection of civil infrastructure typically involve visual assessments conducted manually by trained inspectors. For post-earthquake structural inspections, the number of structures to be inspected often far exceeds the capability of the available inspectors. The labor intensive and time consuming natures of manual inspection have engendered research into development of algorithms for automated damage identification using computer vision techniques. In this paper, a novel damage localization and classification technique based on a state of the art computer vision algorithm is presented to address several key limitations of current computer vision techniques. The proposed algorithm carries out a pixel-wise classification of each image at multiple scales using a deep convolutional neural network and can recognize 6 different types of damage. The resulting output is a segmented image where the portion of the image representing damage is outlined and classified as one of the trained damage categories. The proposed method is evaluated in terms of pixel accuracy and the application of the method to real world images is shown.