The adoption of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in numerous sectors is projected to grow exponentially in the future as technology advances and regulation evolves. One of the promising applications of UAVs is in transportation systems. As the current transportation system is moving towards Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), UAVs will play a significant role in the functioning of ITS. This paper presents a survey on the recent advances of UAVs and their roles in current and future transportation systems. Moreover, the emerging technologies of UAVs in the transportation section and the current research areas are summarized. From the discussion, the challenges and opportunities of integrating UAVs towards future ITS are highlighted. In addition, some of the potential research areas involving UAVs in future ITS are also identified. This study aims to lay a foundation for the development of future intelligent and resilient transportation systems.

Advances of UAVs toward Future Transportation: The State-of-the-Art, Challenges, and Opportunities

Ambient air quality is a complex issue that depends on multiple interacting factors related to emissions coming from energy production and use, transportation, industrial processes, agriculture, and waste and wastewater treatment sectors. It is also impacted by adverse meteorological conditions, pollutants concentrations, their transport and dispersion in the atmosphere, and topographic constraints. Therefore, air pollutants distribution is not uniform and their monitoring at proper temporal and spatial resolution is necessary. Drone-borne analytical instrumentation can fulfill these requirements. Thanks to the rapid development in the drone manufacturing sector as well as in the field of portable detectors construction, applications of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for atmospheric pollution monitoring are growing. The purpose of this work is to give an overview of this matter. Therefore, this paper contains basic information on UAVs (i.e., description of different types of drones with their advantages and disadvantages) and analytical instrumentation (i.e., low-cost gas sensors, multi-sensor systems, electronic noses, high-accuracy optical analyzers, optical particle counters, radiation detectors) used for the monitoring of airborne pollution. Different ways of payload integration are addressed and examples of commercially available solutions are given. Examples of applications of drone-borne analytical systems for pollution monitoring coming from natural (i.e., volcanoes, thawing permafrost, wildfires) and anthropological (i.e., urbanization and industrialization; extraction, transport and storage of fossil fuels; exploitation of radioactive materials; waste and wastewater treatment; agriculture) sources are also described. Finally, the current limitations and future perspectives are discussed. Although there is a great potential for drones applications in the field of atmospheric pollution monitoring, several limitations should be addressed in the coming years. Future research should focus on improving performances of available analytical instrumentation and solving problems related to insufficient payload capacity and limited flight time of commonly used drones. We predict that applications of drone-assisted measurements will grow in the following years, especially in the field of odor pollution monitoring.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/18/11516/pdf?version=1663320979

Drone-Assisted Monitoring of Atmospheric Pollution—A Comprehensive Review

In this study, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were classified based on the principle of generation of lifting force. In addition, the structural characteristics, flight mechanisms, and research examples of each UAV category were introduced. Lifting force is the force that enables an aircraft to hover by countering gravity. It is one of the four forces (i.e., gravity, lifting force, thrust force, and drag force) that act on an aircraft while it flies. In this study, UAVs were classified into the following four categories based on the method of generation of lifting force: (1) fixed wing-based UAVs, which fly based on the lifting force generated indirectly from the forward thrust by using the geometry of aerodynamically designed fixed-wing cross-sections; (2) rotating and flapping wing-based UAVs, which generate lifting force directly using rotating or reciprocating wings, to counter gravity; (3) hybrid wing-based UAVs, which fly using both fixed and rotating wings; and (4) gas envelope-based UAVs, which generate lifting force using the difference in density between the gas and external air, rather than wings. These four types were classified further based specifically on the structural characteristics, and described using particular cases. Considering that UAVs have various flight purposes such as material transport, reconnaissance, surveillance, and special operations, it is anticipated that UAVs with the optimal flight mechanism for each purpose can be selected based on the flight characteristics of UAVs introduced in this paper.

A Survey: Flight Mechanism and Mechanical Structure of the UAV

Electric propulsion technology has attracted much attention in the aviation industry at present. It has the advantages of environmental protection, safety, low noise, and high design freedom. An important research branch of electric propulsion aircraft is electric vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft, which is expected to play an important role in urban traffic in the future. Limited by battery energy density, all electric unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are unable to meet the longer voyage. Series/parallel hybrid-electric propulsion and turboelectric propulsion are considered to be applied to VTOL UAVs to improve performances. In this paper, the potential of these four configurations of electric propulsion systems for small VTOL UAVs are evaluated and compared. The main purpose is to analyze the maximum takeoff mass and fuel consumption of VTOL UAVs with different propulsion systems that meet the same performance requirements and designed mission profiles. The differences and advantages of the four types propulsion VTOL UAV in the maximum takeoff mass and fuel consumption are obtained, which provides a basis for the design and configuration selection of VTOL UAV propulsion system.

Evaluation and Comparison of Hybrid Wing VTOL UAV with Four Different Electric Propulsion Systems

Climbing robots are designed to conduct tasks that may be dangerous for humans working at height. In addition to improving safety, they can also increase task efficiency and reduce labor costs. They are widely used for bridge inspection, high-rise building cleaning, fruit picking, high-altitude rescue, and military reconnaissance. In addition to climbing, these robots need to carry tools to complete their tasks. Hence, their design and development are more challenging than those of most other robots. This paper analyzes and compares the past decade’s design and development of climbing robots that can ascend vertical structures such as rods, cables, walls, and trees. Firstly, the main research fields and basic design requirements of climbing robots are introduced, and then the advantages and disadvantages of six key technologies are summarized, namely, conceptual design, adhesion methods, locomotion modes, safety mechanisms, control methods, and operational tools. Finally, the remaining challenges in research on climbing robots are briefly discussed and future research directions are highlighted. This paper provides a scientific reference for researchers engaged in the study of climbing robots.

/pdf/advances-in-climbing-robots-for-vertical-structures-in-the-297t62lc.pdf

Advances in Climbing Robots for Vertical Structures in the Past Decade: A Review

In this research, a three-modular obstacle-climbing robot is suggested for the operation of a window-cleaning system on the facade of buildings. The suggested robot is composed of a main platform and three modular climbing units. The middle module has the window-cleaning system that performs the cleaning task using a roll-brush, water and detergent, a squeezing pad, and a suction device. Various sensors are installed in each climbing module to detect obstacles and measure the states of the robot and the wall. A winch mechanism is set on the top of the building to facilitate the vertical motion of the robot. The robot controller coordinates the three modules as well as the winch to climb obstacles. To evaluate the performance of the developed robot prototype, a 6-m-high test bed was set up on the roof and the facade. The obstacle size and time required to climb the obstacle were selected as the performance indices. In addition, quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the window-cleaning system were performed. As a result, it was confirmed that the obstacle-climbing robot could climb obstacles of varying sizes with reasonable speed while it performed the window-cleaning function. This research shows that a systemically well designed robot with a combination of simple sensors and actuators can solve the practical problem and apply in built buildings.

Three-Modular Obstacle-Climbing Robot for Cleaning Windows on Building Exterior Walls

In this study, a new method was developed to extend the flight distance of unmanned aerial vehicles such as quadcopters that operate on a limited battery capacity. The suggested method consists of a high-altitude flight initiation system, which uses a carrier rocket, and an autonomous ramp flight algorithm. First, a quadcopter, called a mission quadcopter in this research, is loaded onto the carrier rocket by a folding mechanism, and the rocket flies to a designated height. Then, the carrier rocket releases the mission quadcopter at the high altitude and achieves flight deployment after an unfolding process. Subsequently, the airdropped mission quadcopter stabilizes its pose and flights toward the selected target point. During the flight, it adopts an autonomous ramp flying trajectory. Ramp flying is performed from the sky to the ground surface instead of conventional step shape flying to minimize the flight trajectory and energy consumed while flying. Experiments were performed in Nevada, USA during an international rocket-based airdrop competition, ARLISS (A Rocket Launch for International Student Satellite). The mission quadcopter’s real-time latitude, longitude, and altitude were measured to confirm the position information regarding the quadcopter’s flight trajectory. The mission quadcopter successfully separated from the carrier rocket, deployed for flight at a high altitude, turned to the target point, performed autonomous ramp flying, and landed.

/pdf/extension-of-quadcopter-flight-range-based-on-quadcopter-1e0h2lgexu.pdf

Extension of Quadcopter Flight Range Based on Quadcopter Transport System and Autonomous Ramp Flight Algorithm

Airdrop Operation and Autonomous Flight-Back Experiment of Dual Unmanned Aircraft

Slip Analysis and Experimental Verification for an Omni-Directional Mobile Robot based on Mecanum Wheels

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Cheonghwa Lee

Author Tools

Chat about Author