Real-time hazard map generation using small unmanned aerial vehicle

This paper presents a disaster mitigation system that uses a small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The immediate assessment of damage and the continuous collection of information when natural disasters such as large earthquakes strike are important for developing a disaster recovery plan for damage mitigation. In this study, we develop a small prototype UAV and onboard software using a GPS navigation system and propose a unique disaster mitigation system that generates digital real-time hazard maps with the aid of the UAV. The effectiveness of the proposed system is confirmed by a flight experiment.