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Robotic Systems for Inspections and Surveillance of Industrial Infrastructure
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Robotic Systems for Inspections and Surveillance of Industrial Infrastructure

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Robotics and Automation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 February 2025) | Viewed by 6698

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Dwayne McDaniel

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33174, USA
Interests: controls; multi-tbody dynamics; robotics; sensors; non-destructive testing; composites
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Leonel E. Lagos

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Moss Department of Construction Management, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA
Interests: applied artificial intelligence; robotics; remote systems; big data; nuclear waste management; cyber analytics/visualization; cyber forensics; malware analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The interest in utilizing robotic systems for inspection, damage assessment, surveillance and maintenance operations has seen a significant increase in a variety of industries. There are a number of technical gaps that need to be addressed before these robotic systems can be operated and accepted universally. This is particularly true for situations where robots must navigate in challenging environments (i.e., exposure to radiation and elevated temperature, and complex topographies) or within hard-to-access and constrained locations. For autonomous systems, a number of challenges still remain regarding perception and awareness, path planning and navigation, and assessment of risk.

The intent of this Special Issue is to highlight advancements in robotic systems, including novel approaches and innovative robotic systems for a broad range of industrial infrastructure. We invite you to submit original articles on topics that include but are not limited to:

  • New applications of aerial, aquatic, or ground platforms for surveillance and maintenance operations.
  • Development of novel robotic platforms for the inspection and assessment of infrastructure that has limited access or challenging environments (remote, semi-autonomous, or autonomous operation).
  • Advances in robotic perception and awareness algorithms for dynamic environments.
  • Development of risk assessment algorithms for the safe operation of platforms.
  • Utilization of mulit-robot systems or cobot systems for the inspection or surveillance of infrastructure.
  • Development of robotics and automation in construction.
  • Application of aerial vehicles for data collection and analysis.
  • Application of robotics and anutomation for the development of point clouds, 3D models, time machines and digital twins.

Dr. Dwayne McDaniel
Dr. Leonel E. Lagos
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • robotics
  • surveillance
  • inspection
  • automation
  • digital twins
  • virtual/augmented reality
  • 3D point cloud
  • 3D models

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 12262 KiB  
Article
A Behavioral Robotics Approach to Radiation Mapping Using Adaptive Sampling
by Joel Adams, Brendon Cintas, Nakwon Sung, Anthony Abrahao, Leonel Lagos and Dwayne McDaniel
Appl. Sci. 2025, 15(4), 2050; https://doi.org/10.3390/app15042050 - 15 Feb 2025
Viewed by 626
Abstract
Radiation mapping is a desirable task to automate because of the inherent risks involved and its tedious nature. A novel system was designed to address this by combining various existing technologies, utilizing behavior-based robotics and Bayesian optimization. The system uses a quadruped robot [...] Read more.
Radiation mapping is a desirable task to automate because of the inherent risks involved and its tedious nature. A novel system was designed to address this by combining various existing technologies, utilizing behavior-based robotics and Bayesian optimization. The system uses a quadruped robot equipped with a manipulator and gamma detector to take measurements at locations that are selected based on the uncertainty of a surrogate model used to estimate the true radiation field. The robot uses input from the world with depth cameras to avoid collisions with the robot’s body, and unreachable points for the end effector are addressed by both allowing for a soft collision with the environment to occur, prompting the system to abandon that point, and varying the exploration tendency of the optimization based on consecutive collisions. This approach provides unique traversability and adaptability over other strategies in the literature. Experiments were performed by placing a Cesium-137 source on the ground and varying geometric setups and an optimization parameter demonstrating the adaptability to diverse environments and the increased robustness resulting from the designed behavior. The results additionally demonstrate that dynamically adjusting the optimization algorithm’s exploration tendency based on the arm’s collision history improves the system’s ability to navigate cluttered environments and construct accurate radiation maps without getting stuck in unreachable areas. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Robotic Systems for Inspections and Surveillance of Industrial Infrastructure)
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15 pages, 679 KiB  
Article
Multi-Robot Exploration Employing Harmonic Map Transformations
by Taxiarchis-Foivos Blounas and Charalampos P. Bechlioulis
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14(8), 3215; https://doi.org/10.3390/app14083215 - 11 Apr 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1224
Abstract
Robot Exploration can be used to autonomously map an area or conduct search missions in remote or hazardous environments. Using multiple robots to perform this task can improve efficiency for time-critical applications. In this work, a distributed method for multi-robot exploration using a [...] Read more.
Robot Exploration can be used to autonomously map an area or conduct search missions in remote or hazardous environments. Using multiple robots to perform this task can improve efficiency for time-critical applications. In this work, a distributed method for multi-robot exploration using a Harmonic Map Transformation (HMT) is presented. We employ SLAM to construct a map of the unknown area and utilize map merging to share terrain information amongst robots. Then, a frontier allocation strategy is proposed to increase efficiency. The HMT is used to safely navigate the robots to the frontiers until the exploration task is complete. We validate the efficacy of the proposed strategy via tests in simulated and real-world environments. Our method is compared to other recent schemes for multi-robot exploration and is shown to outperform them in terms of total path distance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Robotic Systems for Inspections and Surveillance of Industrial Infrastructure)
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21 pages, 6032 KiB  
Article
Path Optimization Using Metaheuristic Techniques for a Surveillance Robot
by Mario Peñacoba, Jesús Enrique Sierra-García, Matilde Santos and Ioannis Mariolis
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(20), 11182; https://doi.org/10.3390/app132011182 - 11 Oct 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1457
Abstract
This paper presents an innovative approach to optimize the trajectories of a robotic surveillance system, employing three different optimization methods: genetic algorithm (GA), particle swarm optimization (PSO), and pattern search (PS). The research addresses the challenge of efficiently planning routes for a LiDAR-equipped [...] Read more.
This paper presents an innovative approach to optimize the trajectories of a robotic surveillance system, employing three different optimization methods: genetic algorithm (GA), particle swarm optimization (PSO), and pattern search (PS). The research addresses the challenge of efficiently planning routes for a LiDAR-equipped mobile robot to effectively cover target areas taking into account the capabilities and limitations of sensors and robots. The findings demonstrate the effectiveness of these trajectory optimization approaches, significantly improving detection efficiency and coverage of critical areas. Furthermore, it is observed that, among the three techniques, pattern search quickly obtains feasible solutions in environments with good initial trajectories. On the contrary, in cases where the initial trajectory is suboptimal or the environment is complex, PSO works better. For example, in the high complexity map evaluated, PSO achieves 86.7% spatial coverage, compared to 85% and 84% for PS and GA, respectively. On low- and medium-complexity maps, PS is 15.7 and 18 s faster in trajectory optimization than the second fastest algorithm, which is PSO in both cases. Furthermore, the fitness function of this proposal has been compared with that of previous works, obtaining better results. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Robotic Systems for Inspections and Surveillance of Industrial Infrastructure)
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19 pages, 5555 KiB  
Article
Remote Control Device to Drive the Arm Gestures of an Assistant Humanoid Robot
by Elena Rubies, Ricard Bitriá, Eduard Clotet and Jordi Palacín
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(19), 11115; https://doi.org/10.3390/app131911115 - 9 Oct 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2450
Abstract
This work presents a remote control device designed to drive the arm gestures of an assistant humanoid mobile robot. The remote control is a master device with two passive arms configured to replicate the four degrees of freedom of each arm of the [...] Read more.
This work presents a remote control device designed to drive the arm gestures of an assistant humanoid mobile robot. The remote control is a master device with two passive arms configured to replicate the four degrees of freedom of each arm of the original assistant humanoid robot and send this information to the robot. This configuration allows the mobile robot to directly replicate the position of the arms on the remote controller. The objective of this proposal is to provide the robot with enhanced non-verbal and pointing communication capabilities during human interaction or assistance. The master device registers the angular position of each joint of its passive arms and transmits this information to the mobile robot, which replicates it. The experimental evaluation of the system has shown that the humanoid robot is able to successfully replicate any gesture on the remote controller. The positions of the arms have been sampled at a frame rate of 20 ms, and the average telecontrol delay obtained in the gesture experiments has been 549 ms, without appreciable jumps or irregularities in the gestures. The conclusion is that the direct manipulation of the passive arms of the remote control device provides the APR-02 humanoid robot with enhanced non-verbal and pointing communication capabilities during human interaction or assistance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Robotic Systems for Inspections and Surveillance of Industrial Infrastructure)
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