Navigating a Miniature Crawler Robot for Engineered Structure Inspection

• Published in: IEEE transactions on automation science and engineering Vol. 5; no. 2; pp. 368 - 373
• Main Authors: Sheng, W, Chen, H, Xi, N
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway, NJ IEEE 01.04.2008; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Aircraft; Aircraft navigation; Aircraft propulsion; Algorithms; Applied sciences; Climbing robot; Computer science; control theory; systems; Control theory. Systems; Crawlers; Exact sciences and technology; Humans; Inspection; Inspections; Localization; Miniature; Mobile robots; mobile sensor; Navigation; nondestructive inspection (NDI); Path planning; Position (location); Rivets; Robot sensing systems; Robotics; Robotics and automation; Robots; Skin; Human; Climbing robot; mobile sensor; Human operator; Moving robot; Measurement sensor; Path planning; Modeling; Robotics; Airplane; Automatic measurement; nondestructive inspection (NDI); Optimal trajectory; Climbing behavior; Localization; Aircraft; Non destructive test; Computer aided design
• ISSN: 1545-5955; 1558-3783
• DOI: 10.1109/TASE.2007.910795

This paper addresses the problem of how to navigate a miniature Crawler robot in a typical engineered structure inspection application-aircraft rivet inspection. First, a novel vision-assisted localization algorithm is developed to find the heading and position of the Crawler robot. Second, a new algorithm is developed to solve the path planning problem so that the Crawler robot can navigate through all the rivets. Experimental results validate the localization and path planning algorithms. This inspection system can be extended to other similar engineered structure inspection applications.