HD Camera-Equipped UAV Trajectory Planning for Gantry Crane Inspection

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remotesensing-14-01658.pdf (1.09 MB)

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https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/14/7/1658

Permanent Link

http://hdl.handle.net/11603/24682
 https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14071658

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UMBC Mechanical Engineering Department
UMBC Faculty Collection

Author/Creator

Author/Creator ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2707-2533

Date

2022-03-30

Type of Work

journal articles
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Program

Citation of Original Publication

Tang, G.; Gu, J.; Zhu, W.; Claramunt, C.; Zhou, P. HD Camera-Equipped UAV Trajectory Planning for Gantry Crane Inspection. Remote Sens. 2022, 14, 1658. https:// doi.org/10.3390/rs14071658

Rights

This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.
Public Domain Mark 1.0

Subjects

Abstract

While Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can be a valuable solution for the damage inspection of port machinery infrastructures, their trajectories are still prone to collision risks, trajectory non-smoothness, and large deviations. This research introduces a trajectory optimization method for inspecting vulnerable parts of a gantry crane by a UAV fitted with a high-definition (HD) camera. We first analyze the vulnerable parts of a gantry crane, then use the A* algorithm to plan a path for the UAV. The trajectory optimization process is divided into two steps, the first is a trajectory correction method and the second is an objective function that applies a minimum snap method while taking into consideration flight corridor constraints. The experimental simulation results show that, compared with previous methods, our approach can not only generate a collision-free and smooth trajectory but also shorten the trajectory length significantly while substantially reducing the maximum deviation average deviation distances. The simulation results show that this modelling approach provides a valuable solution for UAV trajectory planning for gantry crane inspection.