Malandrakis, KonstantinosSavvaris, AlGonzalez Domingo, Jose AngelAvdelidis, Nicolas PeterTsilivis, PanagiotisPlumacker, FlorenceZanotti Fragonara, LucaTsourdos, Antonios2019-02-192019-02-192018-09-03Malandrakis K, Savvaris A, Domingo JA, et al., (2018) Inspection of aircraft wing panels using unmanned aerial vehicles. In: 2018 5th IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for AeroSpace (MetroAeroSpace), 20-22 June 2018, Rome, Italy. pp. 56-6197815386247392575-7490https://doi.org/10.1109/MetroAeroSpace.2018.8453598https://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/13918In large civil aircraft manufacturing a time-consuming post-production process is the non-destructive inspection of wing panels. This work aims to address this challenge and improve the defects' detection by performing automated aerial inspection using a small off-the-shelf multirotor. The UAV is equipped with a wide field-of-view camera and an ultraviolet torch for implementing non-invasive imaging inspection. In particular, the UAV is programmed to perform the complete mission and stream video, in real-time, to the ground control station where the defects' detection algorithm is executed. The proposed platform was mathematically modelled in MATLAB/SIMULINK in order to assess the behaviour of the system using a path following method during the aircraft wing inspection. The UAV was tested in the lab where a six-meter-long wing panel was one-side inspected. Initial results indicate that this inspection method could reduce significantly the inspection time, cost, and workload, whilst potentially increasing the probability of detection.enAttribution-NonCommercial 4.0 InternationalConference paper