Savannah River Site H-Canyon Tunnel Inspection LiDAR Mapping Solution - 19477

摘要

Over the summer of 2018, the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) formed and hosted a robotics and sensor intern team and tasked them with developing a proof of concept for a modular sensor suite to be deployed in the next H-Canyon Air Exhaust (HCAEX) Tunnel inspection in spring 2019. The developed sensor suite includes a planar LiDAR sensor for depth imaging, two Panospheric 4K cameras, and an inertial measurement unit to aid in base localization. The LiDAR is actuated to rotate about the vertical axis, which allows for the team to gather 3D mapping data. These rotating planar scans can also be fused with the camera and IMU data to generate colorized internal maps of the tunnel. The supporting software was developed iteratively over the summer and leveraged prior research conducted at the University of Texas at Austin, which facilitated the stitching of LiDAR scans, the fusion of the sensor data, and even algorithms to provide in-situ navigation feedback to the operators of the crawler. This software simultaneously represents huge leaps forward in the mapping and degradation measurement abilities of the crawler over past inspection units, while also allowing the operator much greater situational awareness. The improvement in awareness reduces risks of the robot becoming stuck or disabled inside the tunnel, which would jeopardize the success of both this and future inspections.