Autonomous mobile aircraft inspection system

A method of scanning an airframe, the method comprising:

• providing an autonomous mobile robot having a plurality of two-dimensional LiDAR scanners, the plurality of two-dimensional LiDAR scanners mounted with scanning planes in non-coplanar orientations on the autonomous mobile robot;
• navigating the autonomous mobile robot around a space surrounding the airframe whilst scanning a space surrounding the autonomous mobile robot with the plurality of two-dimensional LiDAR scanners;
• generating point data by the plurality of two-dimensional LiDAR scanners from the scanning of the space surrounding the autonomous mobile robot, and
• compiling an image of the airframe from the point data generated by the plurality of two-dimensional LiDAR scanners.

A machine-readable storage medium comprising instructions executable by a processor to:

• receive two-dimensional point data of a scanned object from a plurality of LiDAR scans,
• stitch the two-dimensional point data to form a three-dimensional plot;
• combine the three-dimensional plot with stored mapping data;
• and
• identify features of objects within the three-dimensional plot and compare the dimensions and/or profile of the identified features with stored data to flag defects or non-conformities in the scanned object.