Uploaded July 2015 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Experimental verification of the Uniform Coverage 3D Structure Inspection Path Planning Algorithm. An autonomous quadrotor perceiving its environment with the help of a Kinect sensor, IMU and sonar data is employed. The inspection path is pre-computed and subsequently executed by the aerial robot. 3D reconstruction techniques utilized on the recorded camera frames present good reconstruction quality despite the limitations of the employed sensor (VGA camera of the Kinect) and the fact that the aerial vehicle always presents some undesired oscilllations.
Experimental verification of the Uniform Coverage 3D Structure Inspection Path Planning Algorithm. An autonomous quadrotor perceiving its environment with the help of a Kinect sensor, IMU and sonar data is employed. The inspection path is pre-computed and subsequently executed by the aerial robot. 3D reconstruction techniques utilized on the recorded camera frames present good reconstruction quality despite the limitations of the employed sensor (VGA camera of the Kinect) and the fact that the aerial vehicle always presents some undesired oscilllations.








![DARPA SubT Urban Circuit: Autonomous Exploration in the Satsop Abandoned Power Plant
In this video, a mission of the Alpha Aerial Scout of Team CERBERUS during the DARPA Subterranean Challenge Urban Circuit event is presented. The Alpha Robot operates inside the Satsop Abandoned Power Plant and performs autonomous exploration. The robot autonomy relies on a resilient multi-modal localization and mapping solution fusing LiDAR, vision and inertial sensing, combined with a graph-based exploration path planner responsible to identify optimized viewpoints to explore the unknown setting in a collision-free manner. The same planner is futher responsible for the automated return-to-home behavior of the robot.
This deployment took place during the 3rd field trial of team CERBERUS during the Urban Circuit event of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge. The Urban Circuit contained the Alpha and Beta courses (name not to be confused with that of the robot which is also called Alpha). This test is in the Alpha course. Team CERBERUS deploys a combination of legged, flying and roving robotic systems.
Most Relevant Papers:
[1] T. Dang, F. Mascarich, S. Khattak, C. Papachristos, K. Alexis, Graph-based Path Planning for Autonomous Robotic Exploration in Subterranean Environments, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2019, Macau, China
[2] S. Khattak, D. H. Nguyen, F. Mascarich, T. Dang, and K. Alexis, Complementary Multi–Modal Sensor Fusion for Resilient Robot Pose Estimation in Subterranean Environments, International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), Athens, Greece, 2020
[3] T. Dang, S. Khattak, F. Mascarich, K. Alexis, Explore Locally, Plan Globally: A Path Planning Framework for Autonomous Robotic Exploration in Subterranean Environments, 19th International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR), Belo Horizonte - Brazil, December 2-6, 2019 (Best Paper Award)
Find out more at:
https://www.autonomousrobotslab.com/ DARPA SubT Urban Circuit: Autonomous Exploration in the Satsop Abandoned Power Plant](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Idmq_5hhMic/mqdefault.jpg)

