The application domain that inspired the AEROWORKS research and innovation activities is that of civil infrastructure services, and its detectable growing necessity for high automation, improved Quality of Services (QoS) and capital-saving maintenance cycles, while retaining –or maximizing– safety and reliability. In order to clearly define the research activities and technological developments, and confine them within focused and specific boundaries, the project consortium has gathered experts from academia, robotics innovation enterprises, as well as key end-users, and aims to provide solutions to the specific –yet wide and challenging– area of civil infrastructure (power generation and distribution, oil & gas, water supply etc.) inspection and maintenance operations.
In general Inspection, repair and maintenance works are complex operations, executed in several cycles and typically require time-consuming, costly and risky procedures, involving highly trained personnel who employ largely non-unified and non-repeatable methods. A variety of methods and approaches are adopted to address the challenges of infrastructure maintenance. Specialized personnel perform visual inspection, nondestructive testing and maintenance tasks using scaffolds, roping or even manned helicopters in order to obtain access to the sites of interest.
The AEROWORKS project introduces the concept of “Collaborative Aerial Robotic Workers”. The goal is to develop a team of collaborative aerial systems equipped with advanced environmental perception and 3D reconstruction, active aerial manipulation, intelligent task planning, and multi-agent collaboration capabilities. Such a team of Aerial Robotic Workers (ARWs) will be capable of autonomously inspecting infrastructure facilities and acting in order to execute a maintenance task by means of aerial manipulation, and exploiting multi-robot collaboration.
Furthermore, the project aims to investigate the emerging scientific challenges of decentralized multi-robot collaboration, path-planning, control for aerial collaborative manipulation, aerial manipulator design, autonomous localization, as well as cooperative environmental perception and reconstruction. Emphasizing on technological innovation, AEROWORKS aims to investigate an approach with very promising returns in infrastructure inspection, repair & maintenance, leading to big savings in costs, while maximizing personnel/asset safety. With such a potential impact, AEROWORKS is at the forefront of bringing Robotics to the basis necessary in real applications, where they can make a difference.
