Verification of an EPM system for an Aerial Inspection Robot and Close-up Image Shooting

Abstract

To develop the aerial inspection robot for infrastructures, we focused attention on EPM (Electric Permanent Magnet) as a device to stick to steel structures in past studies. Sticking ability to structures is one of the advantages of inspection robots. Although the flight experiment by a quad-rotor equipping the developed EMP unit was succeeded, the developed EPM was not able to generate enough magnetic attraction to inspect the structure. In this paper, we evaluate the effect of noise reduction in recorded images by sticking to structures and stopping rotors. The noise included in the images is evaluated based on PSNR (Peak Signal to Noise Ratio). And we develop an EPM system to stick to structures firmly, and evaluate it by measuring the magnetic attraction considering paint thickness of structures. In addition, flight experiment is carried out using the quad-rotor equipped with the EPM system to validate it.