Future Autonomous Drones II

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Robotics and Automation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 July 2023) | Viewed by 7732

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
The Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Institute, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M, Denmark
Interests: embedded systems; drone electronics; autonomous drone navigation and landing on cables
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Drones, a new era of robots that can autonomously fly in natural or human-made environments, have been widely used in the modern world. Drones have played an irreplaceable role both in civilian and military applications, such as in inspecting power lines, railways, and roads and in the forecasting of disasters, environmental monitoring, and agriculture.

During the past few years, autonomous drones have significantly improved their capabilities and systems. Autonomous flight in confined spaces presents great scientific and technical challenges, owing to the energetic cost of staying airborne and to the perceptual intelligence required to negotiate complex environments. Future drones will overcome these shortcomings and thus have wider applications.

This Special Issue aims to collect new research highlighting future autonomous drone technologies, especially in threats, changes, and trends. We welcome submissions and contributions that include but are not limited to the following topics:

  • Autonomous drone navigation and landing on cables;
  • Energy-harvesting techniques for drone applications;
  • Object recognition and AI;
  • Fault detection;
  • Drone path planning and control;
  • Collaborative drone swarm system;
  • Secure communication between the drone and the ground networks.

Dr. Emad Samuel Malki Ebeid
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • autonomous navigation
  • object detection
  • AI
  • path planning
  • swarm systems
  • energy harvesting
  • security

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 6097 KiB  
Article
A Novel Charging Station on Overhead Power Lines for Autonomous Unmanned Drones
by Antonio-Miguel Muñoz-Gómez, Juan-Manuel Marredo-Píriz, Javier Ballestín-Fuertes and José-Francisco Sanz-Osorio
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(18), 10175; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app131810175 - 10 Sep 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1642
Abstract
Innovative drone-based technologies provide novel techniques to guarantee the safety and quality of power supply and to perform these tasks more efficiently. Electric multirotor drones, which are at the forefront of technology, face significant flight time limitations due to battery capacity and weight [...] Read more.
Innovative drone-based technologies provide novel techniques to guarantee the safety and quality of power supply and to perform these tasks more efficiently. Electric multirotor drones, which are at the forefront of technology, face significant flight time limitations due to battery capacity and weight constraints that limit their autonomous operation. This paper presents a novel drone charging station that harvests energy from the magnetic field present in power lines to charge the drone’s battery. This approach relies on a charging station that is easy to install by the drone on an overhead AC power line without modifying the electrical infrastructure. This paper analyses the inductive coupling between the energy harvester and the power line, electrical protection, the power electronics required for maximum power point tracking and the mechanical design of the charging station. A drone that perches on a cable, an end effector for installation procedures and the charging maneuver are described, along with discussion of the robotic and electrical tests performed in a relevant environment. Finally, a lightweight drone charging station capable of harvesting 145 W of power from a 600 A line current is reported. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Future Autonomous Drones II)
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25 pages, 27998 KiB  
Article
Design of an Autonomous Cooperative Drone Swarm for Inspections of Safety Critical Infrastructure
by Rune Hylsberg Jacobsen, Lea Matlekovic, Liping Shi, Nicolaj Malle, Naeem Ayoub, Kaspar Hageman, Simon Hansen, Frederik Falk Nyboe and Emad Ebeid
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(3), 1256; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app13031256 - 17 Jan 2023
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 5600
Abstract
Inspection of critical infrastructure with drones is experiencing an increasing uptake in the industry driven by a demand for reduced cost, time, and risk for inspectors. Early deployments of drone inspection services involve manual drone operations with a pilot and do not obtain [...] Read more.
Inspection of critical infrastructure with drones is experiencing an increasing uptake in the industry driven by a demand for reduced cost, time, and risk for inspectors. Early deployments of drone inspection services involve manual drone operations with a pilot and do not obtain the technological benefits concerning autonomy, coordination, and cooperation. In this paper, we study the design needed to handle the complexity of an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) to support autonomous inspection of safety-critical infrastructure. We apply a constructive research approach to link innovation needs with concepts, designs, and validations that include simulation and demonstration of key design parts. Our design approach addresses the complexity of the UAS and provides a selection of technology components for drone and ground control hardware and software including algorithms for autonomous operation and interaction with cloud services. The paper presents a drone perception system with accelerated onboard computing, communication technologies of the UAS, as well as algorithms for swarm membership, formation flying, object detection, and fault detection with artificial intelligence. We find that the design of a cooperative drone swarm and its integration into a custom-built UAS for infrastructure inspection is highly feasible given the current state of the art in electronic components, software, and communication technology. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Future Autonomous Drones II)
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