A Centerline-Aligned Frenet Graph Framework for Surface-Based Path Planning in Pipeline Environments

Abstract

Pipeline inspection is essential for maintaining the safety of critical infrastructure, but manual inspection is dangerous and inefficient, and existing robotic solutions struggle to handle curved and constrained surfaces. Traditional planning methods are either computationally expensive or prone to redundancy and discretization artifacts. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a centerline-aligned Frenet graph framework for surface-based path planning in pipeline environments. By embedding the pipeline surface into a structured two-dimensional manifold passing through the pipeline's central axis, the framework enables efficient heuristic search while maintaining geometric consistency. By combining quadratic programming with kinematic limits, an initial geodesic constrained path is generated and optimized, resulting in a smooth and executable trajectory. Extensive experiments on pipelines with sharp bends, intersections, and real-world pipeline environments demonstrate significant improvements in computational efficiency, path quality, and robustness compared to traditional methods.