UAV Survey Flight Planning With 3D Obstacle-Free Routing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for monitoring and surveying installations, such as storage areas and pipelines, using unmanned aerial vehicles face challenges in achieving accurate data quality and safety due to varying altitudes and obstacles, which can lead to collisions and reduced data quality with increased distance.
Innovation Solution
The method involves defining an obstacle-free flyover zone for unmanned aerial vehicles to perform overview measurements, creating a three-dimensional digital surface model, and determining an obstacle-free flight route for detailed measurements, utilizing different sensors and vehicles to optimize data acquisition and minimize collision risk.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the flying altitude is increased to reduce collision risk and provide overview, then safety and overview capability are improved, but data quality and measurement precision deteriorate due to increased distance
Solution Approach 1:
The monitoring task is divided into two segments: an overview flight at higher altitude for safety and general observation, and a detailed measurement flight at lower altitude for high-quality data acquisition. This segmentation allows each flight phase to optimize for its specific purpose without compromising the other.
Solution Approach 2:
The overview flight is performed first to identify regions of interest and plan the subsequent detailed measurement flight. This preliminary action allows the system to gather safety-critical information at high altitude before committing to lower-altitude flights that require more precise navigation and have higher collision risk.
2Measurement precision
If the flying altitude is decreased to improve data quality and measurement precision, then measurement precision is improved, but collision risk increases due to proximity to obstacles
Solution Approach 1:
The flight mission is segmented into overview and detailed measurement phases, with the detailed measurement phase restricted to pre-identified regions of interest. This ensures that low-altitude flights occur only where necessary and where the environment has been previously assessed for safety.
Solution Approach 2:
The overview flight acts as an intermediary between high-altitude safety and low-altitude precision. It identifies safe corridors and regions of interest that guide the subsequent detailed measurement flight, mediating between the conflicting requirements of safety and data quality.
3Ease of operation
If automated or semiautomatic flight based on preset routes is used to reduce operational complexity, then ease of operation is improved, but adaptability to dynamic obstacles and changing conditions deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
Preset routes and regions of interest are defined in advance based on available information, enabling automated flight planning. The system performs preliminary identification of monitoring targets and safe zones before execution, allowing automation while maintaining adaptability through pre-computed flexibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The flight system transitions from static preset routes to dynamic adaptive routing. The overview flight results dynamically inform the detailed measurement flight path, allowing the system to adapt to actual conditions while maintaining automated operation through real-time path recalculation based on identified regions of interest.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for controlling an unmanned flying object (UAV) that is used to detect and measure objects in a specified region, where a largely obstacle-free flyover zone is determined for the region to be detected and measured, where the unmanned flying object takes overview measurements of the region utilizing suitable sensors and recording technology in the flyover zone, wherein a three-dimensional digital surface model of the region is ascertained together with the objects located therein based on the overview measurements, and based on the three-dimensional digital surface model, a sequence of positions for detailed measurements and an obstacle-free flight path are ascertained for an unmanned model aircraft for assuming the sequence of positions and are used as the basis for control of the unmanned model aircraft.