Brandt, Martin Albertsen (SINTEF Digital), Grøtli, Esten Ingar (SINTEF Digital)

Sampling-Based 3D Aerial Inspection Path Planning

Scheduled for presentation during the Regular Session "Control Applications" (WeAB), Wednesday, June 11, 2025, 12:10−12:30, Room A

33rd Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation, June 10-13, 2025, Tangier, Morocco

This information is tentative and subject to change. Compiled on May 9, 2025

Abstract

This article presents a coverage path planning pipeline for inspection of complex structures in 3D using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The approach generates candidate view points through random sampling of an input model and computes an optimal inspection path through a subset of the views using an RRT*-based planner. The planner optimizes coverage and flight time while penalizing hard turns, and ensures a collision-free and safe path by dilation of the mesh model. Software-in-the-loop (SITL) simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the inspection path planning pipeline in producing collision-free, high-coverage inspection paths for complex models that take the camera and gimbal parameters into account.