Flight Path Planning of Multiple UAVs for Robust Localization near Infrastructure Facilities

Abstract

To realize automatic inspections for infrastructure facilities by an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), improvement of localization performance is needed. Especially, automatic flight does not work in environments near facilities such as under the bridge because GNSS signals does not reach the UAV. We research a localization system using subsidiary UAVs that assist localization of an inspection UAV (main UAV). In this system, the positioning of the subsidiary UAVs is important to correctly complement the position information of the main UAV. In this paper, as the first stage of research, we consider a path of a single subsidiary UAV using preliminary information: the 3D geometrical data of a target facility, the inspection path of the main UAV, and the arrangement of GNSS satellites during the inspection. A simple simulation shows that the localization of the main UAV does not collapse through the whole path under the evaluation of the GNSS positioning precision of each UAV.