Utilizing Geographic Information System Data for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Position Estimation

For many sensing applications Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can provide a lightweight and highly portable solution. Inevitably they may encounter malfunctions, the most serious of which may require the UAV to land as soon as possible. From a safety prospective it is insufficient to assume the UAV can safely reach a previously determined safe landing site. It is therefore desirable to utilize a reliable source of knowledge such as Geographic Information System (GIS) data to aid in autonomous safe landing site detection. However, before this knowledge can be exploited the UAVs position must be known. This position is commonly estimated using GPS the failure of which may be the very reason an abort command has been issued. Presented in this paper is a method of UAV position estimation which can be executed in the event of GPS failure. Preliminary results are presented based on aerial imagery from the Antrim Plateau region of Northern Ireland which indicate potential in the approach used.