Abstract
Different practical applications have emerged in the last few years, requiring periodic and detailed inspections to verify possible structural changes. Inspections using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) should minimize flight time due to battery time restrictions and identify the terrain’s topographic features. In this sense, Coverage Path Planning (CPP) aims at finding the best path to coverage of a determined area respecting the operation’s restrictions. Photometric information from the terrain is used to create routes or even refine paths already created. Therefore, this research’s main contribution is developing a methodology that uses a metaheuristic algorithm based on point cloud data to inspect slope and dams structures. The technique was applied in a simulated and real scenario to verify its effectiveness. The results showed an increasing 3D reconstructions’ quality observing optimizing photometric and mission time criteria.
Highlights
Planning Optimization Based onOver the last few years, different practical applications emerged requiring periodic inspections to verify possible structural changes, guaranteeing safety through preventive assessment
Coverage Path Planning (CPP) is the task of determining a path that passes through all points of a determined area
It is necessary to increase the number of points at the end of the mission to improve performance, creating images that will only be used in part for 3D Reconstruction
Summary
Over the last few years, different practical applications emerged requiring periodic inspections to verify possible structural changes, guaranteeing safety through preventive assessment. Large structures, such as dams and slopes, need constant monitoring, and due to the size of these structures, manual inspections are time-consuming and may present risks to humans In this context, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) arose as a prominent solution to automate this process in a cost-effectively way. Inspections on large structures with UAVs should minimize flight time due to battery time restrictions and identify the terrain’s topographic features In [26], a GA is used to find viable paths considering radio signal intensity These methods do not include any optimization in terms of image and inspection quality. This research’s main contribution is developing an optimization-based point cloud methodology for application in inspection tasks of large and complex structures, such as slope and dams, which require periodic inspections to verify structural changes.
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