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AeRove: A Compact Bimodal Aerial-Terrestrial Drone with Rapid Bistable Reconfiguration for Close-Range Pipeline Inspection

arXiv · AI, language, vision and robotics · article · Sep 17, 2026 · UTC

Close-proximity pipeline inspection is challenging for standard drones due to high hovering power consumption, airflow sensitivity, and propeller wash interference with gas sensing. To address this, we present AeRove, a compact bimodal aerial-terrestrial robot. AeRove uses its propeller guards as wheels to roll along pipes and employs a spring-loaded bistable mechanism to reconfigure between ground and flight modes in 200 ms without continuous actuator power to maintain either state. The converging propeller-guard geometry also improves measured thrust efficiency. By reserving flight for obsta

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