Autonomous Landing-Site Selection for a Small Drone

In emergency landings, independent selection of the landing site increases the autonomy of pilotless helicopters (drones). The proposed approach consists of three stages: assessment of the requirements on the landing site, taking account of local conditions; preliminary selection of possible landing sites by means of on-board vision systems; and selection of the most promising site by the analysis of high-precision 3D images. This approach significantly improves drone efficiency and safety in monitoring the locations of natural disasters and other emergencies.