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Visual Servoing NMPC Applied to UAVs for Photovoltaic Array Inspection

This article has been published in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RAL)

Edison Velasco-Sánchez1 , Luis F. Recalde2,3 , Bryan S. Guevara 2 , José Varela-Aldás3 ,
Francisco A. Candelas1 , Santiago T. Puente1 , Daniel C. Gandolfo2
1 Group of Automation, Robotics and Computer Vision (AUROVA), University of Alicante
2 Instituto de Automática (INAUT), Universidad Nacional de San Juan-CONICET, San Juan J5400, Argentina.
3 Centro de Investigaciones de Ciencias Humanas y de la Educación (CICHE), Universidad Tecnológica Indoamérica, Ambato-Ecuador
Diagram Visual Servoing NMPC Applied to UAVs for Photovoltaic Array Inspection

Pipeline of the system implemented for overflight and inspection of the PV arrays with the visual servoing controller
combined with dynamic compensation and constraints based on NMPC using UAVs.

UAV flying over the PV arrays

Abstract

The photovoltaic (PV) industry is seeing a significant shift toward large-scale solar plants, where traditional inspection methods have proven to be time-consuming and costly. Currently, the predominant approach to PV inspection using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is based on the capture and detailed analysis of aerial images (photogrammetry). However, the photogrammetry approach presents limitations, such as an increased amount of useless data and potential issues related to image resolution that negatively impact the detection process during high-altitude flights. In this work, we develop a visual servoing control system with dynamic compensation using nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) applied to a UAV. This system is capable of accurately tracking the middle of the underlying PV array at various frontal velocities and height constraints, ensuring the acquisition of detailed images during low-altitude flights. The visual servoing controller is based on extracting features using RGB-D images and employing a Kalman filter to estimate the edges of the PV arrays. Furthermore, this work demonstrates the proposal in both simulated and real-world environments using the commercial aerial vehicle (DJI Matrice 100), with the purpose of showcasing the results of the architecture.

BibTeX


        @article{velasco2024visual,
          title={Visual servoing NMPC applied to UAVs for photovoltaic array inspection},
          author={Velasco-S{\'a}nchez, Edison and Recalde, Luis F and Guevara, Bryan S and Varela-Ald{\'a}s, Jos{\'e} and Candelas, Francisco A and Puente, Santiago T and Gandolfo, Daniel C},
          journal={IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters},
          year={2024},
          publisher={IEEE}
        }
    

Research work was funded by:

    This work was supported in part by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Spanish Government under the research Project PID2021-122685OBI00 and in part by the training of research Ph.D. staff under Grant PRE2019-088069.

Special Acknowledgements

    The authors are grateful for the support of the Secretariat of Science, Technology and Innovation (SECITI) - San Juan, Argentina (Project: PIPE 2022) and the staff of the Anchipurac Photovoltaic Solar Park (EPSE) located in the same city, who provided them with the facilities to perform the flight tests with the UAV.

    The results of this work are part of the project ‘Tecnologías de la Industria 4.0 en Educación, Salud, Empresa e Industria' developed by Universidad Tecnológica Indoamérica.