TAPE: Tether-Aware Path Planning for Autonomous Exploration of Unknown 3D Cavities Using a Tangle-Compatible Tethered Aerial Robot

arXiv:2606.30817v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: This letter presents the first method for autonomous exploration of unknown cavities in three dimensions (3D) that focuses on minimizing the distance traveled and the length of tether unwound. Considering that the tether entanglements are little influenced by the global path, our approach employs a 2-level hierarchical architecture. The global frontier-based planning solves a Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) to minimize the distance. The local plan...