An Optimised Deep Neural Network Approach for Forest Trail Navigation for UAV Operation within the Forest Canopy

Abstract

Autonomous flight within a forest canopy represents a key challenge for generalised scene understanding on-board a future Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) platform. Here we present an approach for automatic trail navigation within such an environment that successfully generalises across differing image resolutions - allowing UAV with varying sensor payload capabilities to operate equally in such challenging environmental conditions. Specifically, this work presents an optimised deep neural network architecture, capable of stateof-the-art performance across varying resolution aerial UAV imagery, that improves forest trail detection for UAV guidance even when using significantly low resolution images that are representative of low-cost search and rescue capable UAV platforms.