Design and Implementation of a Trajectory Planning Application for UAV Inspection of Telecommunication Masts

This article covers the rarely focused-on topic of optimizing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight paths around telecommunication masts. Due to the large variety of structures, along with additional obstacles such as stiffening struts, nearby buildings, and tall vegetation, collecting object data is a complex and demanding problem. One of the main applications of small UAVs is the ability to generate a point cloud of various objects. These are generated using pictures taken by the UAV and information about its position, which are then subjected to special analysis. This article examines the development of an optimal method for conducting flights around telecommunication masts. Many additional difficulties characterize this type of object. Among them, we can include lashings, communication interference caused by wave propagation through antennas, and the high diversity of objects. Finding an optimal, general methodology for performing such flights, taking into account all the difficulties and requirements for the later-generated point cloud, becomes a very complex and complicated problem. In this work, the problems of performing optimal flights around telecommunication masts are described. Then, solutions for taking pictures and different flight paths are considered. An example application for creating flight trajectories around such masts, written in the MATLAB (ver. R2022b) environment, is also presented. Finally, the results and conclusions obtained are described.