Confined spaces industrial inspection with micro aerial vehicles and laser range finder localization

Abstract

This work addresses the problem of semi-automatic inspection and navigation in confined environments. A system that overcomes many challenges at the state of the art is presented. It comprises a multirotor able to inspect an industrial combustion chamber thus working in a GPS-denied environment with poor lighting conditions, in the presence of magnetic and communication disturbances, iron dust and repetitive patterns on the structure walls. The presented system is able to pass through narrow entrances but still capable of acquiring high resolution images and to allow operators to perform inspection of the structures. Starting from the captured data, the system is able to provide a 3D reconstruction of the inspected environment for offline analysis.

A Survey on Swarming With Micro Air Vehicles: Fundamental Challenges and Constraints

“…Odometry and SLAM are not limited to the use of vision. A viable alternative sensor is the LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) scanner, more commonly referred to as “laser scanner.” LIDAR-based SLAM feature the same philosophy as the vision counterparts, but instead of a camera it uses LIDAR to measure depth information and build a map (Bachrach et al, 2011 ; Opromolla et al, 2016 ; Doer et al, 2017 ; Tripicchio et al, 2018 ). A LIDAR is generally less dependent on lighting conditions and needs less computations, but it is also heavier, more expensive, and consumes more on-board power (Opromolla et al, 2016 ).…”

“…Although vision is a rich sensor, in that it can provide different types of information, other sensors also can be used for reactive collision avoidance. LIDAR, for instance, has the advantage that it is less dependent on lighting conditions and can provide more accurate data for localization and navigation (Bachrach et al, 2011 ; Tripicchio et al, 2018 ). Alternatively, time-of-flight laser ranging sensors have also been proposed for reactive obstacle avoidance algorithms on small drones (Laković et al, 2019 ).…”

Human-Assisted Robotic Detection of Foreign Object Debris Inside Confined Spaces of Marine Vessels Using Probabilistic Mapping

“…In other words, our methods are designed to be used on any robot with on-board processing and payload carrying capacity, including those with novel locomotion and manipulation capabilities. In this connection, there are several related works, including semi-automated inspection of an industrial combustion chamber [9]; submerged building mapping by an autonomous vehicle [10]; UAV-based localization in ballast tanks [11]; intelligent exploration in mines using a small drone [12]; autonomous navigation through manhole-sized confined spaces using a collision-tolerant aerial robot [13]; and, semi-autonomous inspection of underground tunnels and caves [14].…”

An Efficient Object-Oriented Exploration Algorithm for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

“…MAV platforms are valuable since they allow to gather information quickly, with high precision, and not less important, the use of such a technology in dangerous environments may also reduce the risks to human operators. Some of the best known tasks performed by drones are infrastructure inspection [1], [2], surveillance and exploration [3], [4], 3D building reconstruction [5], [6], precision agriculture [7], industrial inspection [8], deliver of goods [9] and, recently, SARS-CoV-2 disinfection of indoor facilities [10].…”