Development Of A Semi-Autonomous Aerial Vehicle For Sewerage Inspection

This paper describes the design, development and field tests of an aerial vehicle for semi-autonomous inspection of sewer pipes. This vehicle is able to localize and align itself with respect to the longitudinal axis of the pipe, and to keep a predefined height over the water. The human operator only needs to send high-level commands to move the vehicle forward or backward along the pipe, and this navigation is then done safely in an autonomous manner. We tested our system in a realistic mock-up scenario provided by a city water management company. Our field tests show that the platform is operational and fulfill the requirements for sewer inspections.