Land drones applied to three-dimensional modeling and control of complex industrial environments

Land drones can be armed with different devices such as terrestrial laser scanner, obstacle detectors or remote control systems, in order to provide accurate 3D models of unattended or critical environments in a safe way.
Environments like narrow caves that are difficult to access, electrical substations where there are risk of electric shock, boiler rooms or buildings with structural problems are considered critical environments for human operators due to the danger they entail.
Despite being critical spaces, its maintenance, inspection and control are essential to prevent damages and detect breakdowns, so accurate three-dimensional models are indispensable. For this purpose, terrestrial drones allow the integration of terrestrial laser scanners to capture the environment, as well as obstacle detectors and different communication systems, so that they can be autonomous vehicles or remote-controlled vehicles.
Depending on the accuracy needed and the dimensions of the study case, two different combinations of technologies have been explored, both combining laser scanner with land drones.
To complete this research line, we are working in different methodologies to combine 3D models obtained with land drones and data obtained with aerial drones equipped with conventional cameras or thermo graphic cameras.
Mix both kind of models make the three-dimensional model much more complete and it is possible to detect pathologies in almost everywhere. Some of this process has been used with success in electrical substations and photovoltaic solar plants, detecting, for example, anomalies in some panels.
