Sim-in-Real: Digital Twin Based UAV Inspection Process

This work applies the information integration of the geographic information system (GIS) to the physical world and expands the digital virtual environment in reality with accuracy, reaching the level of the digital twin. This technology has dramatically enhanced the on-site planning, data collection, and result visualization of inspection tasks. It covers a set of virtual environment development processes, including exploring open GIS data, deploying them in the simulator, using GIS-based real-world environment transformation techniques, and collecting data with drones. The developed method has also been validated with field tests. The research can enhance the deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in inspection tasks.