2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Development of an Algorithm for UAV Formation Control for Structural Inspection

Research Project

PDF

Project/Area Number	20K05010
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Section	一般
Review Section	Basic Section 25020:Safety engineering-related
Research Institution	Tokyo University of Science, Yamaguchi (2023) Nippon Institute of Technology (2020-2022)
Principal Investigator	Kambayashi Yasushi 山陽小野田市立山口東京理科大学, 工学部, 教授 (40269527)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	滝本宗宏東京理科大学, 創域理工学部情報計算科学科, 教授 (00318205) 松澤智史東京理科大学, 創域理工学部情報計算科学科, 准教授 (20385529) 鎌田賢茨城大学, 理工学研究科(工学野), 教授 (70204609) 中谷多哉子放送大学, 教養学部, 教授 (30431662)
Project Period (FY)	2020-04-01 – 2024-03-31
Keywords	UAV / LiDARセンサ / 自律飛行 / ロボットビジョン / 画像処理
Outline of Final Research Achievements	We have developed an inspection system that makes a UAV fly automatically at a constant distance from a structure. 　The drone system that automatically keeps facing straight to the structure's surface at a constant distance from the surface while the operator manually commands it to move up or down and left or right. We made the drone system fly in a large room so that it would keep facing straight to the flat wall at the distance of 200 cm. The results showed that the standard deviation of the angles from the straight facing and the standard deviation of the distance from the wall are both stability is statistically significant.. Taking pictures of the structure surface by a camera mounted on such a drone facing straight to the surface and flying along the surface. We have combined a series of taken pictures into a single large image of the surface for its visual inspection. This This study clarified how a drone system can autonomously maintain a stable and accurate flight posture.
Free Research Field	計算機科学
Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements	橋梁のような構造物は，定期的に点検しなければならない。とりわけ昨今のように頻発する地震の後には，定期点検とは別途に至急大規模に実施しなければならない。人手による操縦では，時間と人手がかかるだけでなく見落としも多い。結果としてひび割れ等がかなり進んだ状態で発見される。とりわけ災害復旧時には，短期間に数多くの橋梁を検査しなければならないので，現状のように人間による視覚検査では間に合わない。この研究で示した自律的な飛行ロボットによる構造物の網羅的な健全性検査の自動化は，このような問題を解決する糸口となる。