Autonomous UAV Systems for Multi-Sectoral Inspection and Environmental Monitoring

Abstract

The integration of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in industrial inspections, facility monitoring, and environmental modelling has gained more prominence due to their potential to enhance operational efficiency, mitigate human risk, and facilitate high-resolution data acquisition in challenging operations. This study investigates the deployment of an autonomous UAV framework across applications such as oil and gas infrastructure, solar farm monitoring, power line inspections, water sampling, wind turbine inspections, and civil infrastructure checks. This study adopts a multi-sensor fusion approach, integrating LiDAR, multispectral, and thermal imaging, inertial measurement units (IMUs), and global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) to facilitate accurate mapping, localisation, and defect detection.