GATSBI: An Online GTSP-Based Algorithm for Targeted Surface Bridge Inspection

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Dhami, Harnaik, Yu, Kevin, Williams, Troi, Vajipey, Vineeth, Tokekar, Pratap
Format: Preprint
Published: 2020
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author Dhami, Harnaik
Yu, Kevin
Williams, Troi
Vajipey, Vineeth
Tokekar, Pratap
author_facet Dhami, Harnaik
Yu, Kevin
Williams, Troi
Vajipey, Vineeth
Tokekar, Pratap
contents We study the problem of visual surface inspection of a bridge for defects using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). We do not assume that the geometric model of the bridge is known beforehand. Our planner, termed GATSBI, plans a path in a receding horizon fashion to inspect all points on the surface of the bridge. The input to GATSBI consists of a 3D occupancy map created online with LiDAR scans. Occupied voxels corresponding to the bridge in this map are semantically segmented and used to create a bridge-only occupancy map. Inspecting a bridge voxel requires the UAV to take images from a desired viewing angle and distance. We then create a Generalized Traveling Salesperson Problem (GTSP) instance to cluster candidate viewpoints for inspecting the bridge voxels and use an off-the-shelf GTSP solver to find the optimal path for the given instance. As the algorithm sees more parts of the environment over time, it replans the path to inspect novel parts of the bridge while avoiding obstacles. We evaluate the performance of our algorithm through high-fidelity simulations conducted in AirSim and real-world experiments. We compare the performance of GATSBI with a classical exploration algorithm. Our evaluation reveals that targeting the inspection to only the segmented bridge voxels and planning carefully using a GTSP solver leads to a more efficient and thorough inspection than the baseline algorithm.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2012_04803
institution arXiv
publishDate 2020
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle GATSBI: An Online GTSP-Based Algorithm for Targeted Surface Bridge Inspection
Dhami, Harnaik
Yu, Kevin
Williams, Troi
Vajipey, Vineeth
Tokekar, Pratap
Robotics
We study the problem of visual surface inspection of a bridge for defects using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). We do not assume that the geometric model of the bridge is known beforehand. Our planner, termed GATSBI, plans a path in a receding horizon fashion to inspect all points on the surface of the bridge. The input to GATSBI consists of a 3D occupancy map created online with LiDAR scans. Occupied voxels corresponding to the bridge in this map are semantically segmented and used to create a bridge-only occupancy map. Inspecting a bridge voxel requires the UAV to take images from a desired viewing angle and distance. We then create a Generalized Traveling Salesperson Problem (GTSP) instance to cluster candidate viewpoints for inspecting the bridge voxels and use an off-the-shelf GTSP solver to find the optimal path for the given instance. As the algorithm sees more parts of the environment over time, it replans the path to inspect novel parts of the bridge while avoiding obstacles. We evaluate the performance of our algorithm through high-fidelity simulations conducted in AirSim and real-world experiments. We compare the performance of GATSBI with a classical exploration algorithm. Our evaluation reveals that targeting the inspection to only the segmented bridge voxels and planning carefully using a GTSP solver leads to a more efficient and thorough inspection than the baseline algorithm.
title GATSBI: An Online GTSP-Based Algorithm for Targeted Surface Bridge Inspection
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.04803