A New Algorithm for Visual Navigation in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Water Surface Inspection

Bibliographic Details
Title: A New Algorithm for Visual Navigation in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Water Surface Inspection
Authors: Jianfeng Han, Xiongwei Gao, Lili Song, Jiandong Fang, Yongzhao Tao, Haixin Deng, Jie Yao
Source: Sensors, Vol 25, Iss 8, p 2600 (2025)
Publisher Information: MDPI AG, 2025.
Publication Year: 2025
Collection: LCC:Chemical technology
Subject Terms: river tracking, visual navigation, UAV, semantic segmentation, attention mechanism, Chemical technology, TP1-1185
More Details: Water surface inspection is a crucial instrument for safeguarding the aquatic environment. UAVs enhance the efficiency of water area inspections due to their high mobility and extensive coverage. This paper introduces two UAV inspection methodologies for the characteristics of rivers and lakes, along with an efficient semantic segmentation algorithm, WaterSegLite (Water Segmentation Lightweight algorithm), for UAV visual navigation. The algorithm employs the UAV’s aerial perspective alongside a streamlined neural network architecture to facilitate rapid real-time segmentation of water bodies and to furnish positional data to the UAV for visual navigation. The experimental findings indicate that WaterSegLite achieves a segmentation accuracy (mIoU) of 93.81% and an F1 score of 95.44%, surpassing the baseline model by 2.7% and 2.23%, respectively. Simultaneously, the processing frame rate of this algorithm on the airborne device attains 28.27 frames per second, fully satisfying the requirements for real-time water surface inspection by UAVs. This paper offers technical assistance for UAV inspection techniques in aquatic environments and presents innovative concepts for the intelligent advancement of water surface inspection.
Document Type: article
File Description: electronic resource
Language: English
ISSN: 1424-8220
Relation: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/25/8/2600; https://doaj.org/toc/1424-8220
DOI: 10.3390/s25082600
Access URL: https://doaj.org/article/f8b134ddf14f41558bb4c8447f540f6c
Accession Number: edsdoj.f8b134ddf14f41558bb4c8447f540f6c
Database: Directory of Open Access Journals
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More Details
ISSN:14248220
DOI:10.3390/s25082600
Published in:Sensors
Language:English