Mobile robots for aircraft inspection fall short of required precision by a large margin.

Inspecting large aerospace structures without damaging them requires high precision. Wheeled or walking mobile robots offer a flexible alternative to fixed robot arms for this work, but nobody had tested their positioning accuracy under one shared standard. Researchers tested five commercial mobile robots using a laser trackerlaser trackerA device that uses lasers to measure positions very accurately, serving as a ground truth reference. to measure their real-world positions. The robots used different navigation tools, including LiDAR sensors that map rooms or cameras tracking motion. The team tested how accurately each robot parked and followed paths. The best robot parked with a median accuracy of 8.2 mm, while the worst parked within 63.5 mm. A robot relying only on wheel sensors could not be calibrated at all. Following a path led to errors between 6.9 mm and 112.1 mm. Aerospace inspections require tolerances of 0.2 to 1.0 mm, so no mobile base is accurate enough alone. Every platform needs extra sensors.

Why it matters

Aerospace engineers inspecting large aircraft need precise measurements to ensure safety, but current mobile robots aren't accurate enough on their own. This study quantifies how much extra sensing each robot needs, helping teams make informed choices about deployment.

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