Quadrotor Guidance for Three-Dimensional Inspection of Structures

This work presents a new guidance method for a quadrotor to perform inspection of three-dimensional structures using a dynamical systems-based approach. The guidance method utilizes a cylindrical attractor class of dynamics as characterized by desired radial distance, azimuthal angle, and altitude variation. The proposed method supports multiple inspection tasks within a unified framework, including adaptive helical paths, hovering at specific viewpoints, and composite inspection scenarios. Analytical results ascertain the convergence of quadrotor trajectories to the desired cylindrical surface from arbitrary initial conditions. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated through numerical simulations.