The use of UAV for 3D surface inspection has become an important tool in
the field of large-scale structure maintenance. However, the commonly
used UAV inspection path planning algorithms for 3D surface suffer from
problems such as path quality dependent model accuracy, path inspection
efficiency, and low inspection quality. To address these issues, this
paper proposes a UAV 3D surface inspection path planning algorithm based
on normal vector filtering and integrated viewpoint Evaluation. Generate
a safe and effective set of viewpoints through uniform sampling and
normal vector viewpoint filtering, and then use a integrated viewpoint
evaluation method combined with Monte Carlo tree search to select
viewpoints, thereby generating a safe, efficient, and complete UAV
surface inspection path. The results of simulation and physical
experiments show that the proposed method can effectively solve the path
planning problem when using UAV for surface inspection of large
three-dimensional structures. Meanwhile, while ensuring the quality of
inspection, this method can reduce path redundancy and improve the
surface inspection efficiency of UAV.