POTENTIAL-GUIDED UAV-FLIGHT PATH PLANNING FOR THE INSPECTION OF COMPLEX STRUCTURES

Abstract. This works presents a method to compute a potential field for UAV flight path planning for the image-based inspection of complex structures. The potential field is based on the photogrammetric requirements of the inspection and allows to estimate the potential of a viewpoint position to improve the coverage and reconstructability of the structure, based on a model of the structure and the previous viewpoints. This potential field can be used to guide the planning of the flight path to produce globally optimized flight paths, that minimize the number of required images and the length of the flight path, while achieving complete coverage, high resolution and stable reconstructability. The estimation of the potential is implemented efficiently and continuously differentiable to allow for the use in optimization algorithms. In addition, a general framework for potential-based flight path planning is presented that allows to integrate different requirements and constraints into the planning process, outlining the requirements for the implementation of a flight path planning method using this framework. The method is evaluated and validated in a synthetic realistic scenario, where it demonstrated high performance and reliable results. It is able to identify regions of high potential even in complex environments, for example the underside of an overpass of tight corners that often pose challenges for existing methods.