Overview
Barely Visible Impact Damage (BVID) is a key limiting factor in the wider use of laminated composites, which is difficult to detect and can drastically reduce their strength. The current state of the art lacks a reliable and cheap inspection solution for BVID. The objective of this NWO OTP project, called Autonomous VIsion tAcTile rObots foR inspection (AVIATOR), is to obtain a step-change improvement in reliability, speed, and cost of visual inspection of BVID in aerospace composite structures by developing a novel autonomous Omnidirectional Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (Omni-UAV) with a two-level vision-tactile screening system linked with an Artificial Intelligent (AI)-based platform.
The project involves three academic partners: University of Twente (RAM), Radboud University, and TU Delft, and several industrial partners with expertise in inspection with UAVs, composite materials, manufacturing, and maintenance: SHM next, NLR, Mainblades, Gelsight, KLM, SAMXL, Fokker Services Group.
From the perspective of system engineering, the objective can be achieved by designing a UAV capable of performing autonomous contact-based omnidirectional interaction on an airframe surface. This goal breaks down into the following tasks:
- Modeling of Omnidirectional Morphing UAV (Omni-Morph), incorporating aerodynamic interference.
- Designing control architecture for switching flight modes (energy-saving and dexterous flight), robust against atmospheric disturbances, and capable of stable and accurate physical interaction operation.
- Optimizing the morphing for interaction tasks.
- Creating a motion plan, and estimating surface orientation at the contact area.
- Trajectory generation for full-pose tracking of UAVs.
- Wind estimation and rejection.
For students:
If you are a student at UT and want to contribute to this exciting project, please contact the Principal Investigator of the project (Antonio Franchi), whose contact details can be found on this page.
External links:
- Official project website: https://www.nwo.nl/en/projects/20430
Publications:
- Aboudorra, Y., Gabellieri, C., Brantjes, R. et al. Modelling, Analysis, and Control of OmniMorph: an Omnidirectional Morphing Multi-rotor UAV. J Intell Robot Syst 110, 21 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-024-02054-x
- A. Ali, C. Gabellieri and A. Franchi, "A Control Theoretic Study on Omnidirectional MAVs with Minimum Number of Actuators and No Internal Forces at Any Orientation," 2024 IEEE 63rd Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), Milan, Italy, 2024, pp. 3571-3576, doi: 10.1109/CDC56724.2024.10886175