Seeing Where to Deploy: Metric RGB-Based Traversability Analysis for Aerial-to-Ground Hidden Space Inspection
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Abstract (arXiv)
Inspection of confined infrastructure such as culverts often requires accessing hidden spaces whose entrances are reachable primarily from elevated viewpoints. Aerial-ground cooperation enables a UAV to deploy a compact UGV for interior exploration, but selecting a suitable deployment region from aerial observations requires metric terrain reasoning involving scale ambiguity, reconstruction uncertainty, and terrain semantics. We present a metric RGB-based geometric-semantic reconstruction and traversability analysis framework for aerial-to-ground hidden space inspection. A feed-forward multi-view RGB reconstruction backbone produces dense geometry, while temporally consistent semantic segmentation yields a 3D semantic map. To enable deployment-relevant measurements without requiring LiDAR-based dense mapping, we introduce an embodied motion prior that recovers metric scale by aligning predicted camera motion with onboard platform egomotion. From the metrically grounded reconstruction, we construct a confidence-aware geometric-semantic traversability map and evaluate candidate deployment zones under reachability constraints. Experiments on a tethered UAV-UGV platform demonstrate reliable deployment-zone identification in hidden space scenarios.
Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 15 of its 24 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 15 Mar 2026.
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References · 15
- 20233D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Renderingcited by 6,141
- 2025VGGT: Visual Geometry Grounded Transformercited by 1,475
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- 2024Wild Visual Navigation: Fast Traversability Learning via Pre-Trained Models and Online Self-Supervisioncited by 15
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- 2025E3D-Bench: A Benchmark for End-to-End 3D Geometric Foundation Modelscited by 6
- 2017Automated Robotic Monitoring and Inspection of Steel Structures and Bridgescited by 3
- 2025AFRDA: Attentive Feature Refinement for Domain Adaptive Semantic Segmentationcited by 2
- 2022UAV-miniUGV Hybrid System for Hidden Area Exploration and Manipulationcited by 1
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