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Journal ArticleDOI

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

23 Jun 2021-Vol. 6, Iss: 4, pp 6196-6203
TL;DR: In this article, an optimal power transmission line inspection formulated as a generalization of the traveling salesman problem for a multi-route one-depot scenario is formulated for an inspection vehicle with a limited travel budget.
Abstract: This letter 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.
Citations
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Proceedings ArticleDOI
21 Jun 2022
TL;DR: This paper presents a family of autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) platforms designed for a diverse range of indoor and outdoor applications and presents mechanical designs, electric configurations, and dynamic models of the UAVs, followed by numerous recommendations and technical details required for building such a fully autonomous UAV system for experimental verification of scientific achievements.
Abstract: This paper presents a family of autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) platforms designed for a diverse range of indoor and outdoor applications. The proposed UAV design is highly modular in terms of used actuators, sensor configurations, and even UAV frames. This allows to achieve, with minimal effort, a proper experimental setup for single, as well as, multi-robot scenarios. Presented platforms are intended to facilitate the transition from simulations, and simplified laboratory experiments, into the deployment of aerial robots into uncertain and hard-to-model real-world conditions. We present mechanical designs, electric configurations, and dynamic models of the UAVs, followed by numerous recommendations and technical details required for building such a fully autonomous UAV system for experimental verification of scientific achievements. To show strength and high variability of the proposed system, we present results of tens of completely different real-robot experiments in various environments using distinct actuator and sensory configurations.

15 citations

Proceedings ArticleDOI
01 Oct 2021
TL;DR: In this paper, an application of stereo thermal vision to perform preliminary inspection operations of electrical power lines by a particular class of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is presented.
Abstract: An application of stereo thermal vision to perform preliminary inspection operations of electrical power lines by a particular class of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), aka Micro Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (MAVs), is presented in this paper. The proposed hardware and software setup allows the detection of overheated power equipment, one of the major causes of power outages. The stereo vision complements the GPS information by finely detecting the potential source of damage while also providing a measure of the harm extension. The reduced sizes and the light weight of the vehicle enable to survey areas otherwise difficult to access with standard UAVs. Gazebo simulations and real flight experiments demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed setup.

7 citations

Proceedings ArticleDOI
21 Jun 2022
TL;DR: Reliability analysis and fair performance comparison of several methods integrated into a control pipeline for achieving full autonomy in real conditions is provided and the conditions that are critical for a reliable flight under VIO localization are identified.
Abstract: Integration of Visual Inertial Odometry (VIO) methods into a modular control system designed for deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and teams of cooperating UAVs in real-world conditions are presented in this paper. Reliability analysis and fair performance comparison of several methods integrated into a control pipeline for achieving full autonomy in real conditions is provided. Although most VIO algorithms achieve excellent localization precision and negligible drift on artificially created datasets, the aspects of reliability in non-ideal situations, robustness to degraded sensor data, and the effects of external disturbances and feedback control coupling are not well studied. These imperfections, which are inherently present in cases of real-world deployment of UAVs, negatively affect the ability of the most used VIO approaches to output a sensible pose estimation. We identify the conditions that are critical for a reliable flight under VIO localization and propose workarounds and compensations for situations in which such conditions cannot be achieved. The performance of the UAV system with integrated VIO methods is quantitatively analyzed w.r.t. RTK ground truth and the ability to provide reliable pose estimation for the feedback control is demonstrated onboard a UAV that is tracking dynamic trajectories under challenging illumination.

5 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper , a motion planner for the installation of bird diverters with a set of multi-rotors leveraging on Signal Temporal Logic (STL) is proposed, taking into account payload capacity limitations and recharging constraints.
Abstract: This paper investigates the problem of task assignment and trajectory generation for the installation of bird diverters with a fleet of multirotors leveraging on Signal Temporal Logic (STL) specifications. We extend our previous motion planner to compute feasible and constrained trajectories, taking into account payload capacity limitations and recharging constraints. The proposed planner ensures the continuity of the operation, while guaranteeing compliance with safety requirements and mission fulfillment. Additionally, an event-based replanning strategy is proposed to react to unforeseen failures. An energy minimization term is also considered to implicitly save multirotor flight time during installation operations. Numerical simulations in MATLAB, Gazebo, and field experiments demonstrate the performance of the approach and its validity in mock-up scenarios.

2 citations

Proceedings ArticleDOI
21 Jun 2022
TL;DR: In this article , a family of autonomous UAVs is presented for a diverse range of indoor and outdoor applications, and the proposed UAV design is highly modular in terms of used actuators, sensor configurations, and even UAV frames.
Abstract: This paper presents a family of autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) platforms designed for a diverse range of indoor and outdoor applications. The proposed UAV design is highly modular in terms of used actuators, sensor configurations, and even UAV frames. This allows to achieve, with minimal effort, a proper experimental setup for single, as well as, multi-robot scenarios. Presented platforms are intended to facilitate the transition from simulations, and simplified laboratory experiments, into the deployment of aerial robots into uncertain and hard-to-model real-world conditions. We present mechanical designs, electric configurations, and dynamic models of the UAVs, followed by numerous recommendations and technical details required for building such a fully autonomous UAV system for experimental verification of scientific achievements. To show strength and high variability of the proposed system, we present results of tens of completely different real-robot experiments in various environments using distinct actuator and sensory configurations.

2 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The present paper provides yet another example of the versatility of integer programming as a mathematical modeling device by representing a generalization of the well-known “Travelling Salesman Problem” in integer programming terms.
Abstract: It has been observed by many people that a striking number of quite diverse mathematical problems can be formulated as problems in integer programming, that is, linear programming problems in which some or all of the variables are required to assume integral values. This fact is rendered quite interesting by recent research on such problems, notably by R. E. Gomory [2, 3], which gives promise of yielding efficient computational techniques for their solution. The present paper provides yet another example of the versatility of integer programming as a mathematical modeling device by representing a generalization of the well-known “Travelling Salesman Problem” in integer programming terms. The authors have developed several such models, of which the one presented here is the most efficient in terms of generality, number of variables, and number of constraints. This model is due to the second author [4] and was presented briefly at the Symposium on Combinatorial Problems held at Princeton University, April 1960, sponsored by SIAM and IBM. The problem treated is: (1) A salesman is required to visit each of n cities, indexed by 1, … , n. He leaves from a “base city” indexed by 0, visits each of the n other cities exactly once, and returns to city 0. During his travels he must return to 0 exactly t times, including his final return (here t may be allowed to vary), and he must visit no more than p cities in one tour. (By a tour we mean a succession of visits to cities without stopping at city 0.) It is required to find such an itinerary which minimizes the total distance traveled by the salesman.Note that if t is fixed, then for the problem to have a solution we must have tp g n. For t = 1, p g n, we have the standard traveling salesman problem.Let dij (i ≠ j = 0, 1, … , n) be the distance covered in traveling from city i to city j. The following integer programming problem will be shown to be equivalent to (1): (2) Minimize the linear form ∑0li≠jln∑ dijxij over the set determined by the relations ∑ni=0i≠jxij = 1 (j = 1, … , n) ∑nj=0j≠ixij = 1 (i = 1, … , n) ui - uj + pxij l p - 1 (1 l i ≠ j l n) where the xij are non-negative integers and the ui (i = 1, …, n) are arbitrary real numbers. (We shall see that it is permissible to restrict the ui to be non-negative integers as well.)If t is fixed it is necessary to add the additional relation: ∑nu=1xi0 = t Note that the constraints require that xij = 0 or 1, so that a natural correspondence between these two problems exists if the xij are interpreted as follows: The salesman proceeds from city i to city j if and only if xij = 1. Under this correspondence the form to be minimized in (2) is the total distance to be traveled by the salesman in (1), so the burden of proof is to show that the two feasible sets correspond; i.e., a feasible solution to (2) has xij which do define a legitimate itinerary in (1), and, conversely a legitimate itinerary in (1) defines xij, which, together with appropriate ui, satisfy the constraints of (2).Consider a feasible solution to (2).The number of returns to city 0 is given by ∑ni=1xi0. The constraints of the form ∑ xij = 1, all xij non-negative integers, represent the conditions that each city (other than zero) is visited exactly once. The ui play a role similar to node potentials in a network and the inequalities involving them serve to eliminate tours that do not begin and end at city 0 and tours that visit more than p cities. Consider any xr0r1 = 1 (r1 ≠ 0). There exists a unique r2 such that xr1r2 = 1. Unless r2 = 0, there is a unique r3 with xr2r3 = 1. We proceed in this fashion until some rj = 0. This must happen since the alternative is that at some point we reach an rk = rj, j + 1

1,641 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A review of the most successful CPP methods, focusing on the achievements made in the past decade, is presented, providing links to the most interesting and successful works.

1,157 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The multiple traveling salesman problem (mTSP) as discussed by the authors is a generalization of the well-known TSP, where more than one salesman is allowed to be used in the solution.
Abstract: The multiple traveling salesman problem (mTSP) is a generalization of the well-known traveling salesman problem (TSP), where more than one salesman is allowed to be used in the solution. Moreover, the characteristics of the mTSP seem more appropriate for real-life applications, and it is also possible to extend the problem to a wide variety of vehicle routing problems (VRPs) by incorporating some additional side constraints. Although there exists a wide body of the literature for the TSP and the VRP, the mTSP has not received the same amount of attention. The purpose of this survey is to review the problem and its practical applications, to highlight some formulations and to describe exact and heuristic solution procedures proposed for this problem.

1,019 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present the most important achievements in the field of distribution power line inspection by mobile robots, including automated helicopter inspection, inspection with flying robots and inspection with climbing robots.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to present the most important achievements in the field of distribution power line inspection by mobile robots. Stimulated by the need for fast, accurate, safe and low-cost power line inspection, which would increase the quality of power delivery, the field of automated power line inspection has witnessed rapid development over the last decade. This paper addresses automated helicopter inspection, inspection with flying robots and inspection with climbing robots. The first attempts to automate power line inspection were conducted in the field of helicopter inspection. In recent years, however, the research was mostly focused on flying and climbing robots. These two types of robots for automated power line inspection are critically assessed according to four important characteristics: design requirements, inspection quality, autonomy and universality of inspection. Besides, some general not yet identified problems and tasks of inspection robots, which should be addressed in the future, are presented. In conclusion, the two robot types have specific benefits and drawbacks so that none can currently be considered generally advantageous.

244 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A mixed integer programming (MIP) formulation is presented that captures the delivery concept of a truck-drone combination along with the idea of allowing autonomous drones to fly from delivery trucks, make deliveries, and fly to any available delivery truck nearby.

190 citations