Cooperative digital magnetic‐elevation maps by small autonomous aerial robots

Abstract

One of the steps to provide fundamental data for planning a mining effort is the magnetic surveying of a target area, which is typically carried out by conventional aircraft campaigns. However, besides the high cost, fixed‐wing aerial vehicles present shortcomings especially for drape flights on mountainous regions, where steep slopes are often present. Traditional human‐crewed flights have to perform tedious and dangerous trajectories, under strict velocity and attitude constraints. In this paper, we deal with the problem of accomplishing digital magnetic‐elevation maps using autonomous and cooperative aerial robots. The proposed approach for autonomous mapping utilizes a custom‐built fluxgate sensor and off the shelf cameras adapted for small airborne platforms. We also propose an innovative approach for generating a digital magnetic‐elevation model from the gathered data. Our method was evaluated and validated in field tests in an industrial scenario to detect scrap metals in ore piles. Results show that the proposed method could reliably detect magnetic anomalies while generating accurate three‐dimensional magnetic maps.

An Adaptive Two-Dimensional Voxel Terrain Mapping Method for Structured Environment

“…Currently, the perception of the surrounding environment by mobile robots predominantly relies on depth cameras or Lidar sensors to model their environment. These sensors capture point cloud data from the environment, which, when combined with the robot's pose information, is used to generate raster maps [10][11][12], elevation maps [13][14][15], or threedimensional point cloud maps [16][17][18]. Generally, for legged mobile robots, landing point planning and motion control can be achieved using low-dimensional representations, eliminating the need for full three-dimensional space maps.…”

Improving Cut and Fill Operations in Construction using Drone Technology and Aerial Analytics

“…The findings demonstrated that SLLAC was superior to other metrics in detecting terraced locations and accurately representing terraced landscapes. To produce digital magnetic-elevation maps, [6] describe a collaborative method utilising little autonomous airborne robots. The robots can fly together to map the magnetic and altitude fields of a target area since they are outfitted with magnetometers and altimeters.…”

Applications of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Mining from Exploration to Reclamation: A Review

“…Azpúrua et al [50] proposed a new approach for generating 2-D magnetic maps using a small autonomous aerial robot with a customized fluxgate magnetometer. They evaluated its performance in a real-world scenario.…”