{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,1]],"date-time":"2026-06-01T18:45:08Z","timestamp":1780339508262,"version":"3.54.1"},"reference-count":12,"publisher":"Springer Science and Business Media LLC","issue":"6","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,28]],"date-time":"2025-07-28T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1753660800000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,28]],"date-time":"2025-07-28T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1753660800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100010663","name":"H2020 European Research Council","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["101058477"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["101058477"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100010663","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"NORCE Research AS"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["link.springer.com"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["SN COMPUT. SCI."],"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n          <jats:p>Accurately identifying the positions of products in outdoor environments-such as warehouses or industrial yards-presents unique challenges due to variable lighting, weather conditions, and the lack of fixed infrastructure. This work presents a vision-based drone system for product localization using QR code detection and relative positioning. The proposed system enables a UAV to autonomously scan an area, extract QR codes from captured video frames, and compute the spatial relationships between products using a trust-ability graph. Unlike traditional GPS- or RFID-based methods, our approach does not rely on external infrastructure, making it scalable and adaptable for outdoor and semi-structured environments. We demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves over 94% positioning accuracy in indoor settings and 80% in outdoor environments, even under occlusion and varying illumination. The key contributions of this work include: (1) a novel infrastructure-free method for product positioning based on relative spatial relationships, (2) the integration of trust-ability scoring to improve the reliability of detected positions, and (3) an extensive evaluation in real-world indoor and outdoor industrial scenarios. These results validate the potential of UAV-assisted inventory systems to enhance automation in logistics and warehouse management.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1007\/s42979-025-04206-8","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,28]],"date-time":"2025-07-28T12:12:55Z","timestamp":1753704775000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Outdoor Warehouse Management: UAS-Driven Precision Tracking of Stacked Steel Bars"],"prefix":"10.1007","volume":"6","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1294-8478","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Assia","family":"Belbachir","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Antonio M.","family":"Ortiz","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Erik T.","family":"Hauge","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ahmed Nabil","family":"Belbachir","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Giusy","family":"Bonanno","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Emanuele","family":"Ciccia","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Giorgio","family":"Felline","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,28]]},"reference":[{"key":"4206_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"Belbachir A, Ortiz AM, Hauge ET, et\u00a0al. Drone technology for efficient warehouse product localization. In: Gini G, Precup R, Filev DP (eds) Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics, ICINCO, vol\u00a02. SCITEPRESS, pp 357\u2013364, 2024 https:\/\/doi.org\/10.5220\/0012947900003822","DOI":"10.5220\/0012947900003822"},{"issue":"3","key":"4206_CR2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1462","DOI":"10.1109\/TAES.2020.3043543","volume":"57","author":"F Causa","year":"2021","unstructured":"Causa F, Fasano G. Improving navigation in gnss-challenging environments: Multi-uas cooperation and generalized dilution of precision. IEEE Trans Aerosp Electron Syst. 2021;57(3):1462\u201379. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1109\/TAES.2020.3043543.","journal-title":"IEEE Trans Aerosp Electron Syst"},{"key":"4206_CR3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"Cristiani D, Bottonelli F, Trotta A, et\u00a0al. Inventory management through mini-drones: Architecture and proof-of-concept implementation. In: 2020 IEEE 21st International Symposium on \"A World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks\" (WoWMoM), 2020; pp 317\u2013322. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1109\/WoWMoM49955.2020.00060","DOI":"10.1109\/WoWMoM49955.2020.00060"},{"key":"4206_CR4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"Curtin J, Kauffman RJ, Riggins FJ. Making the \u2018most\u2019 out of rfid technology: A research agenda for the study of the adoption, usage and impact of rfid. Inf Technol Manag 2007;8(2). https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s10799-007-0010-1","DOI":"10.1007\/s10799-007-0010-1"},{"issue":"5","key":"4206_CR5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"6445","DOI":"10.1109\/TVT.2022.3229628","volume":"72","author":"A Famili","year":"2023","unstructured":"Famili A, Stavrou A, Wang H, et al. Pilot: high-precision indoor localization for autonomous drones. IEEE Trans Veh Technol. 2023;72(5):6445\u201359. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1109\/TVT.2022.3229628.","journal-title":"IEEE Trans Veh Technol"},{"key":"4206_CR6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Fernandez-Carames TM, Blanco-Novoa O, Froiz-Miguez I et\u00a0al. A uav and blockchain-based system for industry 4.0 inventory and traceability applications. Proceedings 2019;4(1):26","DOI":"10.3390\/ecsa-5-05758"},{"key":"4206_CR7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"George A, Koivum\u00e4ki N, Hakala T, et\u00a0al. Visual-inertial odometry using high flying altitude drone datasets. Drones 2023;7(1). https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/drones7010036","DOI":"10.3390\/drones7010036"},{"key":"4206_CR8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Konsynski BR, Smith HA. Developments in practice x: Radio frequency identification (rfid) - an internet for physical objects. Commun Assoc Inf Syst 12:19. 2003 https:\/\/api.semanticscholar.org\/CorpusID:43756316","DOI":"10.17705\/1CAIS.01219"},{"key":"4206_CR9","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"Malang C, Charoenkwan P, Wudhikarn R. Implementation and critical factors of unmanned aerial vehicle (uav) in warehouse management: A systematic literature review. Drones 2023;7(2). https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/drones7020080","DOI":"10.3390\/drones7020080"},{"key":"4206_CR10","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"R\u00e1cz-Szab\u00f3 A, Ruppert T, B\u00e1ntay L, et\u00a0al. Real-time locating system in production management. Sensors 2020;20(23). https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/s20236766,","DOI":"10.3390\/s20236766"},{"issue":"3","key":"4206_CR11","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"362","DOI":"10.1177\/20594364231183618","volume":"8","author":"G de Seta","year":"2023","unstructured":"de Seta G. Qr code: The global making of an infrastructural gateway. Global Media Chin. 2023;8(3):362\u201380. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/20594364231183618.","journal-title":"Global Media Chin"},{"issue":"7","key":"4206_CR12","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"750","DOI":"10.1049\/iet-rsn.2017.0461","volume":"12","author":"Y Xu","year":"2018","unstructured":"Xu Y, Shmaliy YS, Ahn CK, et al. Robust and accurate uwb-based indoor robot localisation using integrated ekf\/efir filtering. IET Radar Sonar Navigat. 2018;12(7):750\u20136. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1049\/iet-rsn.2017.0461.","journal-title":"IET Radar Sonar Navigat"}],"container-title":["SN Computer Science"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/content\/pdf\/10.1007\/s42979-025-04206-8.pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s42979-025-04206-8\/fulltext.html","content-type":"text\/html","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/content\/pdf\/10.1007\/s42979-025-04206-8.pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,28]],"date-time":"2025-07-28T12:12:57Z","timestamp":1753704777000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/10.1007\/s42979-025-04206-8"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,28]]},"references-count":12,"journal-issue":{"issue":"6","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,8]]}},"alternative-id":["4206"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s42979-025-04206-8","relation":{},"ISSN":["2661-8907"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2661-8907","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,28]]},"assertion":[{"value":"11 May 2025","order":1,"name":"received","label":"Received","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"9 July 2025","order":2,"name":"accepted","label":"Accepted","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"28 July 2025","order":3,"name":"first_online","label":"First Online","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"order":1,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Declarations"}},{"value":"All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. The manuscript is approved by all authors for publication.","order":2,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Conflict of interest"}},{"value":"Not applicable.","order":3,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Ethics approval and consent to participate"}},{"value":"Not applicable.","order":4,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Consent for publication"}},{"value":"Not applicable.","order":5,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Materials availability"}},{"value":"All code generated or used during the study is available from the corresponding author upon request.","order":6,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Code availability"}}],"article-number":"701"}}