Path Planning for Indoor Contact Inspection Tasks With Uavs

Abstract

Abstract. UAV technology has become a useful tool for the inspection of infrastructures. Structural Health Monitoring methods are already implementing these vehicles to obtain information about the condition of the structure. Several systems based on close range remote sensing and contact sensors have been developed. In both cases, in order to perform autonomous missions in hard accessible areas or with obstacles, a path planning algorithm that calculates the trajectory to be followed by the UAV to navigate these areas is mandatory. This works presents a UAV path planning algorithm developed to navigate indoors and outdoors. This algorithm does not only calculate the waypoints of the path, but the orientation of the vehicle for each location. This algorithm will support a specific UAV-based contact inspection of vertical structures. The required input data consist of a point cloud of the environment, the initial position of the UAV and the target point of the structure where the contact inspection will be performed.

Indoor Path-Planning Algorithm for UAV-Based Contact Inspection

“…If the path planning algorithm presented in this manuscript is compared with the previous A* implementation [ 34 ], an average speed up to 213 times higher is achieved. Table 2 shows the comparison of the execution times of both methods, the traditional A* and the method presented in this manuscript, comparing them.…”

“…In this way, when a new path is calculated, just the info from the rooms that the system has to go through is used, making the method more efficient. Preliminary results have been published in a congress [ 34 ]. During the development of this previous path planning algorithm, authors noticed that the algorithm was too slow to be implemented in a real study case, as it does not fulfil the execution time restrictions to be considered as a real-time path planner.…”

Path Planning and Control of a UAV Fleet in Bridge Management Systems

“…In Ref. [25], the authors present a UAV path planning algorithm developed to navigate indoors and outdoors, useful for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM), which calculates waypoints and vehicle orientation for each location based on Voxelization. The paper [13] presents an algorithm that allows a UAS to provide continuous uninterrupted structural inspection service, suitable for use in multi-UAV waypoint missions.…”