Towards Fully Automated Inspection of Large Components with UAVs: Offline Path Planning

Bettendorf

Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics

et al. 2021

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The inspection of large structures is increasingly carried out with the help of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). When navigating relative to the structure, multiple data sources can be used to determine the position of the UAV. Examples include track data from an installed camera and sensor data from the orientation sensors of the UAV. This paper deals with the fusion of this data and its use for navigation alongside the structure. For the sensor fusion, a concept is developed using a Kalman filter and evaluated simulatively in a prototype. The calculated position data are also fed into a vector flight control system, which dynamically calculates and flies a trajectory along the component using the potential field method. This is done taking into account obstacles detected by the onboard sensors of the UAV. The established concept is then implemented with the Robot Operating System (ROS) and evaluated simulatively.

“…The inspection points (route) are generated in a previous step, presented in (Wanninger. et al, 2020) and loaded by the navigation node which tries to reach these points sequentially.…”

Section: Potential Field Methods Implementationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

UAV Inspection of Large Components: Indoor Navigation Relative to Structures

Bettendorf

Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics

et al. 2021

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“…The three key concepts of our architecture are points of interest, viewpoints and viewareas. These have already been introduced in our previous work [4], but are briefly defined again here for the reader's better understanding. POIs are points to be inspected at an assembly (see: fig.…”

Section: A Pois Viewpoints Viewareasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The case study we consider in this paper is the inspection of brackets riveted to the fuselage of an aircraft. We build upon our previous work, in which we have already addressed the challenges of efficiently generating a short route for the UAV to inspect all the necessary parts [4], optimizing the route to prefer points, that view multiple points of interest (POIs) at once [5], and navigating the UAV relative to the structure without the help of external positioning systems [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

UAV Inspection of Large Components: Determination of Alternative Inspection Points and Online Route Optimization

2023 IEEE/ACM 5th International Workshop on Robotics Software Engineering (RoSE)

Katschinsky

et al. 2023

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Automation is playing an increasing role in the field of quality assurance. For the visual inspection of larger assemblies such as aircraft fuselages or ship hulls, the use of UAVs is an option. This paper deals with one aspect of the UAVsupported inspection of assemblies in production. Here, newly added components have to be checked for correct assembly. The planning of the shortest possible route from which all components to be inspected can be viewed as well as the estimation of the UAV's position relative to the component have already been presented in previous work. We propose strategies that can be used if an inspection point cannot be reached by the UAV or the component to be inspected cannot be seen by the UAV's camera from the inspection point. For this purpose, we generate alternative inspection points that can be used if errors occur during the inspection from the original inspection point. To achieve this, we present a metric that can be used to select an alternative inspection point that is as suitable as possible. We conclude by demonstrating how this strategy works by evoking different failure cases in a simulated environment.

Towards Fully Automated Inspection of Large Components with UAVs: Offline Path Planning and View Angle Dependent Optimization Strategies

Katschinsky

Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics

et al. 2022

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Automation mechanisms are increasingly established in the field of visual quality control. UAVs can be used for particularly large components, such as those used in aircraft or ship production, but also for critical infrastructures. This paper concentrates on the problem of visual quality control in the field of perspective-dependent route planning. It is shown how the requirements for such a system can be implemented and elaborated. Furthermore we investigate how sensor positions can be calculated offline, based on optical-and geometrical requirements and how a trajectory can be planned which contains the found sensor positions for each given area on the component. It is shown how the systems architecture can be designed in order to be able to adapt it to different requirements for the planning of sensor positions and trajectory. The implementation was tested in a simulation environment, evaluated using a benchmark data set and it was shown how above-average results can be achieved on this data set.