The overall goal of the AUTOPSY project is the design and development of an innovative robotic system for critical energy infrastructure inspection, which will enable the identification and prevention of failures to the external infrastructure of the power plant network of the Public Power Corporation (PPC).
Specific aims of the project are to:
- Develop smart concerted and synergistic unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAVs, i.e., drones) for autonomous supervision of large-scale power infrastructures and installations
- Equip the “swarm” of UAVs with an advanced, multi-sensor system, consisting of color and thermal cameras and 360° Lidar sensors, for environment perception, manipulation and modeling of the surveillance area
- Develop machine learning techniques which allow wide-range damage identification caused from different points of external space
- Integrate autonomous and collaborative navigation techniques into each UAV to maximise flight duration and as wide as possible surveillance coverage of the area under examination
- Develop a decision-making system for fault prediction and prompt updating of the maintenance team via cyber-secure user interfaces
The successful implementation of AUTOPSY is expected to create high potential for economic exploitation of the results, by assuring and improving the regular operation of critical infrastructures and successively contributing to the efficiency of business consumers regarding power electricity. The increased ability to prevent disasters or faults due to infrastructure failures, provided by the proposed system, offers the potential to minimise potential risks to both humans and the environment. The application domain of critical infrastructures is very broad and includes electric power plants, transmission lines, cooling towers, dams and even lignite mines.
TWI Hellas' role is the development of the swarm coordination and navigation algorithms for optimal coverage of the area under inspection, and the autopilot techniques and algorithms for docking on the charging station, and the adaptation and integration of the UAV system with the multimodal sensor system.
Partners: Centre for Research and Technology Hellas - Information Technologies Institute (CERTH / ITI), and the Testing Research & Standards Center - Public Power Corporation S.A. (TRSC / PPC)
AUTOPSY is co-funded by the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Greece (EPAnEK 2014 – 2020).