Application of Photogrammetry Technique for quarry stockpile estimation

Abstract

The quarrying activities is one of the largest industries in the world which supplied aggregate primarily for construction of any buildings and structures. Continuous supply of aggregates is very important to ensure the construction activities can be carried out without delays. Hence, the quarry operators consistently monitor their stockpile volume to meet the client's demands. In most cases, the determination of available stockpile at the quarry are done by utilizing conventional method (manual measurement of the stockpile's dimension). This approach is time consuming and sometimes required professional surveyor to carry out the task. Hence in this work, a comparative study between conventional and photogrammetry method was done to estimate the stockpile in a quarry. Drone was flying to capture the aerial images of a stockpile in the quarry. The effect of the flying height and the percentage of overlapping on the accuracy of stockpile volume was studied. Result shows at lower percent of side overlap (50%), the accuracy of estimation is better. The difference between the photogrammetry technique and conventional method only 2.5%. It can be concluded that photogrammetry technique is very reliable to be applied by the quarry operators to estimate their stockpile volume.