Persons

Ing. František Nekovář

All publications

Energy-aware Multi-UAV Coverage Mission Planning with Optimal Speed of Flight

  • DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2024.3358581
  • Link: https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2024.3358581
  • Department: Multi-robot Systems
  • Annotation:
    This paper tackles the problem of planning minimum-energy coverage paths for multiple UAVs. The addressed Multi-UAV Coverage Path Planning (mCPP) is a crucial problem for many UAV applications such as inspection and aerial survey. However, the typical path-length objective of existing approaches does not directly minimize the energy consumption, nor allows for constraining energy of individual paths by the battery capacity. To this end, we propose a novel mCPP method that uses the optimal flight speed for minimizing energy consumption per traveled distance and a simple yet precise energy consumption estimation algorithm that is utilized during the mCPP planning phase. The method decomposes a given area with boustrophedon decomposition and represents the mCPP as an instance of Multiple Set Traveling Salesman Problem with a minimum energy objective and energy consumption constraint. The proposed method is shown to outperform state-of-the-art methods in terms of computational time and energy efficiency of produced paths. The experimental results show that the accuracy of the energy consumption estimation is on average 97% compared to real flight consumption. The feasibility of the proposed method was verified in a real-world coverage experiment with two UAVs.

Vehicle Fault-Tolerant Robust Power Transmission Line Inspection Planning

  • DOI: 10.1109/ETFA52439.2022.9921692
  • Link: https://doi.org/10.1109/ETFA52439.2022.9921692
  • Department: Artificial Intelligence Center, Multi-robot Systems
  • Annotation:
    This paper concerns fault-tolerant power transmission line inspection planning as a generalization of the multiple traveling salesmen problem. The addressed inspection planning problem is formulated as a single-depot multiple-vehicle scenario, where the inspection vehicles are constrained by the battery budget limiting their inspection time. The inspection vehicle is assumed to be an autonomous multi-copter with a wide range of possible flight speeds influencing battery consumption. The inspection plan is represented by multiple routes for vehicles providing full coverage over inspection target power lines. On an inspection vehicle mission interruption, which might happen at any time during the execution of the inspection plan, the inspection is re-planned using the remaining vehicles and their remaining battery budgets. Robustness is introduced by choosing a suitable cost function for the initial plan that maximizes the time window for successful re-planning. It enables the remaining vehicles to successfully finish all the inspection targets using their respective remaining battery budgets. A combinatorial metaheuristic algorithm with various cost functions is used for planning and fast re-planning during the inspection.

Multi-tour Set Traveling Salesman Problem in Planning Power Transmission Line Inspection

  • DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2021.3091695
  • Link: https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2021.3091695
  • Department: Artificial Intelligence Center, Multi-robot Systems
  • Annotation:
    This paper concerns optimal power transmission line inspection formulated as a proposed generalization of the traveling salesman problem for a multi-route one-depot scenario. The problem is formulated for an inspection vehicle with a limited travel budget. Therefore, the solution can be composed of multiple runs to provide full coverage of the given power lines. Besides, the solution indicates how many vehicles can perform the inspection in a single run. The optimal solution of the problem is solved by the proposed Integer Linear Programming (ILP) formulation, which is, however, very computationally demanding. Therefore, the computational requirements are addressed by the combinatorial metaheuristic. The employed greedy randomized adaptive search procedure is significantly less demanding while providing competitive solutions and scales better with the problem size than the ILP-based approach. The proposed formulation and algorithms are demonstrated in a real-world scenario to inspect power line segments at the electrical substation.

Responsible person Ing. Mgr. Radovan Suk