Automatic Identification of Safety Landing Points for VTOL UAVs Using Geodata

This paper presents a concept for automatic identification of landing spots for safety landings applied for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) capabilities. It utilizes open-source geodata, consisting of land use data and an elevation model. With the growing deployment of UAVs across diverse applications, it is necessary to ensure operational safety in emergency situations. In such situations, the flight system must be able to safely abort its current flight mission by landing at a so-called safety landing point and thus minimize both air and ground risk. A systematic procedure for determining potential safety landing points using two data sources (elevation model and land use data) based on predefined criteria has been developed. The presented results demonstrate the effectiveness of using open-source data in UAV operations, thereby paving the way for more robust and safe flight operations in various environments.