Related papers: Autonomous Power Line Inspection with Drones via P…
Power lines are dangerous for low-flying aircraft, especially in low-visibility conditions. Thus, a vision-based system able to analyze the aircraft's surroundings and to provide the pilots with a "second pair of eyes" can contribute to…
Drones can inspect overhead power lines while they remain energized, significantly simplifying the inspection process. However, localizing a drone relative to all conductors using an onboard LiDAR sensor presents several challenges: (1)…
In recent years, the use of inspection drones has become increasingly popular for high-voltage electric cable inspections due to their efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and ability to access hard-to-reach areas. However, safely landing drones…
Automated visual inspection of on-and offshore wind turbines using aerial robots provides several benefits, namely, a safe working environment by circumventing the need for workers to be suspended high above the ground, reduced inspection…
Autonomous inspection of powerlines with quadrotors is challenging. Flights require persistent perception to keep a close look at the lines. We propose a method that uses event cameras to robustly track powerlines. Event cameras are…
In this study, we formulate the drone delivery problem as a control problem and solve it using Model Predictive Control. Two experiments are performed: The first is on a less challenging grid world environment with lower dimensionality, and…
Inspection of insulators is important to ensure reliable operation of the power system. Deep learning is being increasingly exploited to automate the inspection process by leveraging object detection models to analyse aerial images captured…
The widespread popularity of unmanned aerial vehicles enables an immense amount of power lines inspection data to be collected. How to employ massive inspection data especially the visible images to maintain the reliability, safety, and…
Autonomous drone racing presents a challenging control problem, requiring real-time decision-making and robust handling of nonlinear system dynamics. While iterative learning model predictive control (LMPC) offers a promising framework for…
In recent years, power line maintenance has seen a paradigm shift by moving towards computer vision-powered automated inspection. The utilization of an extensive collection of videos and images has become essential for maintaining the…
Smart electrical grids rely on data communication to support their operation and on sensing for diagnostics and maintenance. Usually, the roles of communication and sensing equipment are different, i.e., communication equipment does not…
Multirotor aerial robots are becoming widely used for the inspection of powerlines. To enable continuous, robust inspection without human intervention, the robots must be able to perch on the powerlines to recharge their batteries. Highly…
In this paper, we introduce a new class of parameterized controllers, drawing inspiration from Model Predictive Control (MPC). The controller resembles a Quadratic Programming (QP) solver of a linear MPC problem, with the parameters of the…
Policy Search and Model Predictive Control~(MPC) are two different paradigms for robot control: policy search has the strength of automatically learning complex policies using experienced data, while MPC can offer optimal control…
Large-scale infrastructures are prone to deterioration due to age, environmental influences, and heavy usage. Ensuring their safety through regular inspections and maintenance is crucial to prevent incidents that can significantly affect…
This paper presents a data-driven approach to the design of predictive controllers. The prediction matrices utilized in standard model predictive control (MPC) algorithms are typically constructed using knowledge of a system model such as,…
Intelligent aerial platforms such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are expected to revolutionize various fields, including transportation, traffic management, field monitoring, industrial production, and agricultural management. Among…
Ensuring the safety and reliability of power grids is critical as global energy demands continue to rise. Traditional inspection methods, such as manual observations or helicopter surveys, are resource-intensive and lack scalability. This…
Detecting and estimating distances to power lines is a challenge for both human UAV pilots and autonomous systems, which increases the risk of unintended collisions. We present a mmWave radar-based perception system that provides spherical…
Perception modules are integral in many modern autonomous systems, but their accuracy can be subject to the vagaries of the environment. In this paper, we propose a learning-based approach that can automatically characterize the error of a…