Rapid Aerial Mapping with Multiple Heterogeneous Unmanned Vehicles

Abstract—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. Besides, the system assumed that all vehicles would have equal flight range and the same sensor footprint. In this paper, we address these limitations and present a new complete coverage path planning algorithm with support for no-fly zones inside the area of interest. The proposed method is suitable for non-convex areas, possibly with holes, to be covered by one or more maneuverable systems such as multi-rotor aircraft. Range and sensor footprint of the aircraft may differ