Technical Papers
Dec 21, 2022

Perception-Aware Tag Placement Planning for Robust Localization of UAVs in Indoor Construction Environments

Publication: Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering
Volume 37, Issue 2

Abstract

Tag-based visual-inertial localization is a lightweight method for enabling autonomous data collection missions of low-cost unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in indoor construction environments. However, finding the optimal tag configuration (i.e., number, size, and location) on dynamic construction sites remains challenging. This work proposes a perception-aware genetic algorithm-based tag placement planner (PGA-TaPP) to determine the optimal tag configuration using four-dimensional (4D) building information models (BIM), considering the project progress, safety requirements, and UAV’s localizability. The proposed method provides a 4D plan for tag placement by maximizing the localizability in user-specified regions of interest (ROIs) while limiting the installation costs. Localizability is quantified using the Fisher information matrix (FIM) and encapsulated in navigable grids. The experimental results show the effectiveness of our method in finding an optimal 4D tag placement plan for the robust localization of UAVs on under-construction indoor sites.

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Data Availability Statement

All data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Acknowledgments

The authors appreciate the financial support from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) (Grant No. RGPIN-2017-06792). The opinions, findings, and conclusions presented in this work are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the entity mentioned previously.

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Go to Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering
Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering
Volume 37Issue 2March 2023

History

Received: Jun 28, 2022
Accepted: Oct 1, 2022
Published online: Dec 21, 2022
Published in print: Mar 1, 2023
Discussion open until: May 21, 2023

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Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Civil and Mineral Engineering, Univ. of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M4S A4 (corresponding author). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8139-7254. Email: [email protected]
Angela Schoellig
Associate Professor, Institute for Aerospace Studies, Univ. of Toronto, North York, ON, Canada M3H 5T6.
Brenda McCabe, M.ASCE
Professor, Dept. of Civil and Mineral Engineering, Univ. of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M4S 1A4.

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