Path planning for rapid aerial mapping with unmanned aircraft systems

One focus of research at Frauhofer IOSB is the utilization of unmanned aerial vehicles for data acquisition. Past efforts have lead to the development of a hardware and software system able to rapidly generate a complete and up-to-date aerial image by combining several single high resolution pictures taken by multiple unmanned aerial vehicles. However, the path planning component of the system was not designed to support no-fly zones inside the area of interest. In this paper, we present a new complete coverage path planning algorithm that provides support for no-fly zones inside the area, and also increases efficiency by reducing the number of turns. The proposed method is suitable for complex areas that may contain known obstacles and no-fly zones, to be covered by maneuverable systems such as multirotor aircraft.