A Simulation Framework of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Route Planning Design and Validation for Landslide Monitoring

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have emerged as a highly efficient means of monitoring landslide-prone regions, given the growing concern for urban safety and the increasing occurrence of landslides. Designing optimal UAV flight routes is crucial for effective landslide monitoring. However, in real-world scenarios, the testing and validating of flight path planning algorithms incur high cost and safety concerns, making overall flight operations challenging. Therefore, this paper proposes the use of the Unreal Engine simulation framework to design UAV flight path planning specifically for landslide monitoring. It aims to validate the authenticity of the simulated flight paths and the correctness of the algorithms. Under the proposed simulation framework, we then test a novel flight path planning algorithm. The simulation results demonstrate that the model reconstruction obtained using the novel flight path algorithm exhibits more detailed textures, with a 3D model simulation accuracy ranging from 10 to 14 cm. Among them, the RMSE value of the novel flight route algorithm falls within the range of 10 to 11 cm, exhibiting a 2 to 3 cm improvement in accuracy compared to the traditional flight path algorithm. Additionally, it effectively reduces the flight duration by 9.3% under the same flight path compared to conventional methods. The results confirm that the simulation framework developed in this paper meets the requirements for landslide damage monitoring and validates the feasibility and correctness of the UAV flight path planning algorithm.