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Field and Service Robotics pp 427–440Cite as

Autonomous Exploration for Infrastructure Modeling with a Micro Aerial Vehicle

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Part of the book series: Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics ((STAR,volume 113))

Abstract

Micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) are an exciting technology for mobile sensing of infrastructure as they can easily position sensors in to hard to reach positions. Although MAVs equipped with 3D sensing are starting to be used in industry, they currently must be remotely controlled by a skilled pilot. In this paper we present an exploration path planning approach for MAVs equipped with 3D range sensors like lidar. The only user input that our approach requires is a 3D bounding box around the structure. Our method incrementally plans a path for a MAV to scan all surfaces of the structure up to a resolution and detects when exploration is finished. We demonstrate our method by modeling a train bridge and show that our method builds 3D models with the efficiency of a skilled pilot.

This research is funded by the National Science Foundation under grant IIS-1328930.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Luke Yoder & Sebastian Scherer

Authors
  1. Luke Yoder
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  2. Sebastian Scherer
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Luke Yoder or Sebastian Scherer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

    David S. Wettergreen

  2. Inst for Aerospace Studies, Univ of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Timothy D. Barfoot

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Yoder, L., Scherer, S. (2016). Autonomous Exploration for Infrastructure Modeling with a Micro Aerial Vehicle. In: Wettergreen, D., Barfoot, T. (eds) Field and Service Robotics. Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics, vol 113. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27702-8_28

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27702-8_28

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-27700-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-27702-8

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