Osprey: Multi-Session Autonomous Aerial Mapping with LiDAR-based SLAM and Next Best View Planning
arXiv:2311.03484 · doi:10.1109/TFR.2024.3432031
Abstract
Aerial mapping systems are important for many surveying applications (e.g., industrial inspection or agricultural monitoring). Aerial platforms that can fly GPS-guided preplanned missions semi-autonomously are already widely available but fully autonomous systems can significantly improve efficiency. Autonomously mapping complex 3D structures requires a system that performs online mapping and mission planning. This paper presents Osprey, an autonomous aerial mapping system with state-of-the-art multi-session LiDAR-based mapping capabilities. It enables a non-expert operator to specify a bounded target area that the aerial platform can then map autonomously over multiple flights. Field experiments with Osprey demonstrate that this system can achieve greater map coverage of large industrial sites than manual surveys with a pilot-flown aerial platform or a terrestrial laser scanner (TLS). Three sites, with a total ground coverage of m and a maximum height of m, were mapped in separate missions using minutes of autonomous flight time. True colour maps were created from images captured by Osprey using pointcloud and NeRF reconstruction methods. These maps provide useful data for structural inspection tasks.
arXiv comment25 pages, 15 figures, 3 tables. Video available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVIXu2qUQJ8 Dataset available at https://dynamic.robots.ox.ac.uk/datasets/oxford-osprey
References in corpus (15)
- ORB-SLAM: a Versatile and Accurate Monocular SLAM System
- VINS-Mono: A Robust and Versatile Monocular Visual-Inertial State Estimator
- Voxblox: Incremental 3D Euclidean Signed Distance Fields for On-Board MAV Planning
- Nerfstudio: A Modular Framework for Neural Radiance Field Development
- Reducing the Barrier to Entry of Complex Robotic Software: a MoveIt! Case Study
- VILENS: Visual, Inertial, Lidar, and Leg Odometry for All-Terrain Legged Robots
- Heterogeneous Ground and Air Platforms, Homogeneous Sensing: Team CSIRO Data61's Approach to the DARPA Subterranean Challenge
- A Multi-Resolution Frontier-Based Planner for Autonomous 3D Exploration
- AIT* and EIT*: Asymmetric bidirectional sampling-based path planning
- Autonomous Cave Surveying with an Aerial Robot
- Wildcat: Online Continuous-Time 3D Lidar-Inertial SLAM
- Factor Graph Fusion of Raw GNSS Sensing with IMU and Lidar for Precise Robot Localization without a Base Station
- SiLVR: Scalable Lidar-Visual Reconstruction with Neural Radiance Fields for Robotic Inspection
- The Surface Edge Explorer (SEE): A measurement-direct approach to next best view planning
- Autonomous Aerial Robotic Surveying and Mapping with Application to Construction Operations