@article{abdollahzadeh_vision-based_2026,

title = {A Vision-Based Framework for Safe Landing Zone Mapping of UAVs in Dynamic Environments},

author = {S. Abdollahzadeh and M. S. Allili and A. Boulmerka and J. -F. Lapointe},

url = {https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-105029942397&doi=10.1109%2FOJCS.2026.3663268&partnerID=40&md5=b11484e035458c84b1d3f6780b92c91c},

doi = {10.1109/OJCS.2026.3663268},

issn = {26441268 (ISSN)},

year  = {2026},

date = {2026-01-01},

journal = {IEEE Open Journal of the Computer Society},

volume = {7},

pages = {492–503},

abstract = {Identification safe landing zones (SLZ) for Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is important to ensure reliable and safe navigation, especially when they are operated in complex and safety-critical environments. However, this is a challenging task due to obstacles and UAV motion. This paper proposes a vision-based framework that maps SLZs in dynamic scenes by integrating several functionalities for analyzing visually static and dynamic aspects of a scene. Static analysis is achieved through context-aware segmentation which divides the image into thematic classes enabling to identify suitable landing surfaces (e.g., roads, grass). For dynamic content analysis, we combine object detection, tracking, and trajectory prediction to determine object occupancy and identify regions free of obstacles. Trajectory prediction is performed through a novel encoder–decoder architecture taking past object positions to predict the most likely future locations. To ensure stable and robust trajectory prediction, we introduce an optimized homography computation using multi-scale image analysis and cumulative updates to compensate UAV motion. We tested our framework on different operational scenarios, including urban and natural scenes with moving objects like vehicles and pedestrians. Obtained results demonstrate its strong performance, and its significant potential for enabling autonomous and safe UAV navigation. © 2020 IEEE.},

keywords = {Aerial vehicle, Air navigation, Aircraft detection, Aircraft landing, Antennas, automatic UAV navigation, Computer vision, Dynamic environments, Forecasting, Homographies, Landing zones, Learning systems, Motion tracking, Object detection, Object recognition, Object Tracking, object trajectory prediction, Robotics, Safe landing, Safe landing zone, safe landing zones (SLZ), Semantic segmentation, Semantics, Trajectories, Trajectory forecasting, Uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), Unmanned aerial vehicle, Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{hebbache_leveraging_2023,

title = {Leveraging Saliency in Single-Stage Multi-Label Concrete Defect Detection Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Imagery},

author = {L. Hebbache and D. Amirkhani and M. S. Allili and N. Hammouche and J. -F. Lapointe},

url = {https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85149966766&doi=10.3390%2frs15051218&partnerID=40&md5=7bf1cb3353270c696c07ff24dc24655d},

doi = {10.3390/rs15051218},

issn = {20724292},

year  = {2023},

date = {2023-01-01},

journal = {Remote Sensing},

volume = {15},

number = {5},

publisher = {MDPI},

abstract = {Visual inspection of concrete structures using Unmanned Areal Vehicle (UAV) imagery is a challenging task due to the variability of defects’ size and appearance. This paper proposes a high-performance model for automatic and fast detection of bridge concrete defects using UAV-acquired images. Our method, coined the Saliency-based Multi-label Defect Detector (SMDD-Net), combines pyramidal feature extraction and attention through a one-stage concrete defect detection model. The attention module extracts local and global saliency features, which are scaled and integrated with the pyramidal feature extraction module of the network using the max-pooling, multiplication, and residual skip connections operations. This has the effect of enhancing the localisation of small and low-contrast defects, as well as the overall accuracy of detection in varying image acquisition ranges. Finally, a multi-label loss function detection is used to identify and localise overlapping defects. The experimental results on a standard dataset and real-world images demonstrated the performance of SMDD-Net with regard to state-of-the-art techniques. The accuracy and computational efficiency of SMDD-Net make it a suitable method for UAV-based bridge structure inspection. © 2023 by the authors.},

note = {Publisher: MDPI},

keywords = {Aerial vehicle, Aircraft detection, Antennas, Computational efficiency, Concrete defects, Deep learning, Defect detection, extraction, Feature extraction, Features extraction, Image acquisition, Image Enhancement, Multi-labels, One-stage concrete defect detection, Saliency, Single stage, Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), Unmanned areal vehicle imagery},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}