A GIS application for UAV flight planning
Michele Mangiameli*, Giovanni Muscato**,
Giuseppe Mussumeci***, Cristina Milazzo*
*
Faculty of Engineering Architecture and Movement Sciences, University of Enna, Italy
(e-mail: michele.mangiameli@unikore.it, cristina.milazzo@unikore.it)
**
Department of Electric, Electronics and Computer Engineering , University of Catania, Italy
(e-mail: gmuscato@diees.unict.it)
***
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Catania, Italy
(e-mail: gmussume@dica.unict.it)
Abstract: The flight planning for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is extremely useful both in terms
of planimetry and altimetry. Regarding the planimetry, it is needed to reach and operate on the region of
interest, while for the altimetry, it is functional to plan the flight altitude as function of the obstacles
along the navigation path. In this paper we propose an innovative approach for the construction of a
georeferenced map of the obstacles based on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies. In this
way the path planning for the UAV navigation can be accurately managed by defining precise flight
plans on a cartographic support where the obstacles are represented in a three-dimensional way. The
employment of free and open source software only, makes the approach widely usable and customizable.
Keywords: Robotics, Navigation systems, GIS, UAV, DBMS.
1. INTRODUCTION
The planning of the flight and the management of the
navigation of UAV is essential in order to identify the
optimal route depending on the position and height of
possible obstacles present in the operating zone [Niendorf et
al., 2011, Muscato et al., 2012, Yu-Cheol et al., 2011]. Thus
it is essential to trace a path in terms of planimetry and
altimetry.
To this aim, the GIS environment is particularly useful to
have a cartographic support that is accurate and precise for
determining the route in planimetry, and to construct maps in
which the altitude variation of the obstacles is represented
and georeferenced.
Here we present a GIS approach to generate raster maps
representing the obstacles present in a real urban
environment. Our approach is based on the following main
steps:
Digitization of buildings as vector data shapefile(when a
3D numerical cartography is not available);
Conversion of vector data to raster data using the GIS
functionalities;
Use of the "spline" algorithm to generate a raster that
contains the spatial variation of the heights of the
buildings;
Definition of the possible path for the UAV in the GIS
environment;
Conversion of the path to waypoints successively stored
in a text file made available to the UAV.
In this way each possible obstacle to the autonomous
navigation of the UAV is perfectly localized and
georeferenced in the urban environment.
This procedure has been tested on an urban environment
where buildings are positioned as obstacles with different
heights.
2. GIS OPEN SOURCE ARCHITECTURE TO MANAGE
THE UAV NAVIGATION
The development of the GIS architecture for the autonomous
navigation of the UAV is based only on free and open source
software, since its source code is made available by the
developers and therefore it is easily customizable.
In particular, the GIS architecture is composed by:
A desktop GIS platform;
A Web-GIS platform;
A spatial database;
2nd IFAC Workshop on Research, Education and Development of
Unmanned Aerial Systems
November 20-22, 2013. Compiegne, France
978-3-902823-57-1/2013 © IFAC 147 10.3182/20131120-3-FR-4045.00025