Tavasci Luca, Nex Francesco, Gandolfi Stefano
Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering (DICAM), Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy.
Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands.
Sensors (Basel). 2024 Sep 20;24(18):6096. doi: 10.3390/s24186096.
UAVs are nowadays used for several surveying activities, some of which imply flying close to tall walls, in and out of tunnels, under bridges, and so forth. In these applications, RTK GNSS positioning delivers results with very variable quality. It allows for centimetric-level kinematic navigation in real time in ideal conditions, but limitations in sky visibility or strong multipath effects negatively impact the positioning quality. This paper aims at assessing the RTK positioning limitations for lightweight and low-cost drones carrying cheap GNSS modules when used to fly in some meaningful critical operational conditions. Three demanding scenarios have been set up simulating the trajectories of drones in tasks such as infrastructure (i.e., building or bridges) inspection. Different outage durations, flight dynamics, and obstacle sizes have been considered in this work to have a complete overview of the positioning quality. The performed tests have allowed us to define practical recommendations to safely fly drones in potentially critical environments just by considering common software and standard GNSS parameters.
如今，无人机被用于多种测量活动，其中一些活动意味着要靠近高墙飞行、进出隧道、在桥下飞行等等。在这些应用中，实时动态（RTK）全球导航卫星系统（GNSS）定位的结果质量差异很大。在理想条件下，它能实现厘米级的实时动态导航，但天空能见度的限制或强烈的多径效应会对定位质量产生负面影响。本文旨在评估搭载廉价GNSS模块的轻型低成本无人机在一些有意义的关键操作条件下飞行时RTK定位的局限性。我们设置了三种具有挑战性的场景，模拟无人机在基础设施（如建筑物或桥梁）检查等任务中的飞行轨迹。在这项工作中，我们考虑了不同的中断持续时间、飞行动力学和障碍物尺寸，以全面了解定位质量。通过所进行的测试，我们能够仅通过考虑通用软件和标准GNSS参数，就定义出在潜在关键环境中安全飞行无人机的实用建议。
