Volumetric Estimation of Stockpiles using UAV

Small scale Unmanned/uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAV) are becoming progressively common mainly due to the extensive possibilities in terms of accuracy, expenses, and abilities. The purpose of this study is to validate the utilization of UAVs for earth stockpile volume calculations on sites. Volume estimations are also crucial in many of surveying practices and that too achieving efficient and highly accurate volume estimation is both theoretically and practically important practice. Due to the increased accessibility of low-cost UAVs, this innovation could soon revolutionize numerous industries including those that require volumetric estimation. Traditionally volumetric estimation included mainly theodolite (TST), a global positioning system (GPS), terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), and airborne light and direction ranging (LIDAR) which were highly accurate but time-consuming. Methods of data collection and post processing techniques were explored. Volumetric accuracies were assessed by comparing collected data of various heaps and it was?98.64% accurate. According to the latter, if selected heap 1 the extracted volume was 13320.52 m3, which was 1.36% less than volume derived from UAV (13141.796 m3).