Drone Routing Optimizer for Aerial Inspections of Energy and Railway Infrastructures

Abstract

View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2022-3546.vidLong range drones (either fixed wing or VTOL) represent a novel approach for monitoring and inspection of extensive longitudinal infrastructures such as power lines, pipelines and railway tracks including overhead lines. This paper proposes a method to find efficient system of systems configurations regarding drone range requirements and base locations to operate from. Using an heuristic optimizer, sensitivity analyses are presented for inspection flights of the German Railway system of Deutsche Bahn as well as the US natural gas pipeline system. It is concluded that longer drone ranges facilitate either more efficient mission designs or alternatively enable fewer bases of operations and thus less capital expenditure while limiting mission efficiency through increased average target approach distances.