Slide
Centre Interdisciplinaire
de Recherche et d’Innovation
en Cybersécurité et Société
de Recherche et d’Innovation
en Cybersécurité et Société
1.
Abdollahzadeh, S.; Allili, M. S.; Boulmerka, A.; Lapointe, J. -F.
Visual Safety Mapping for UAV Landings Using Ordinal Regression Networks Journal Article
In: IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, vol. 7, no. 6, pp. 3146–3159, 2026, ISSN: 26914581 (ISSN).
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Aerial vehicle, Air navigation, Aircraft landing, Antennas, Automatic uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) navigation, Automatic unmanned aerial vehicle navigation, Autonomous navigation, Behavioral research, Computer vision, decision making, Deep learning, deep ordinal regression, Emergency services, Landing zones, Learning systems, Ordinal regression, regression analysis, Safe landing, Safe landing zone, safe landing zones (SLZs), Semantic segmentation, Semantics, Textures, Three dimensional computer graphics, Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), Vehicle navigation, Visual servoing
@article{abdollahzadehVisualSafetyMapping2026,
title = {Visual Safety Mapping for UAV Landings Using Ordinal Regression Networks},
author = {S. Abdollahzadeh and M. S. Allili and A. Boulmerka and J. -F. Lapointe},
url = {https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105023324811?origin=resultslist},
doi = {10.1109/TAI.2025.3635093},
issn = {26914581 (ISSN)},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-01-01},
journal = {IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence},
volume = {7},
number = {6},
pages = {3146–3159},
publisher = {Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.},
abstract = {As uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) see growing use in civilian applications, reliably identifying safe landing zones (SLZs) in varied environments is essential for autonomous navigation and emergency response. Passive vision sensors offer a low cost, lightweight solution for real-time terrain analysis and 3D scene reconstruction, making them ideal for onboard systems. We introduce ordinal regression safe landing zones netwrok (OR-SLZNet), an original deep learning model based on ordinal regression to predict SLZs from UAV imagery. Unlike prior approaches, OR-SLZNet produces dense, multilevel safety maps by jointly leveraging photometric (e.g., color and texture) and geometric cues (e.g., flatness, slope, and depth), assigning each pixel an ordinal safety score that reflects landing suitability. With real-time inference (textbackslashsim0.02 s/frame), the model supports onboard deployment and rapid decision-making in time-critical situations. Extensive experiments on five diverse datasets demonstrate OR-SLZNet effectiveness and strong generalization across a wide range of structural complexities. © 2020 IEEE.},
keywords = {Aerial vehicle, Air navigation, Aircraft landing, Antennas, Automatic uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) navigation, Automatic unmanned aerial vehicle navigation, Autonomous navigation, Behavioral research, Computer vision, decision making, Deep learning, deep ordinal regression, Emergency services, Landing zones, Learning systems, Ordinal regression, regression analysis, Safe landing, Safe landing zone, safe landing zones (SLZs), Semantic segmentation, Semantics, Textures, Three dimensional computer graphics, Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), Vehicle navigation, Visual servoing},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
As uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) see growing use in civilian applications, reliably identifying safe landing zones (SLZs) in varied environments is essential for autonomous navigation and emergency response. Passive vision sensors offer a low cost, lightweight solution for real-time terrain analysis and 3D scene reconstruction, making them ideal for onboard systems. We introduce ordinal regression safe landing zones netwrok (OR-SLZNet), an original deep learning model based on ordinal regression to predict SLZs from UAV imagery. Unlike prior approaches, OR-SLZNet produces dense, multilevel safety maps by jointly leveraging photometric (e.g., color and texture) and geometric cues (e.g., flatness, slope, and depth), assigning each pixel an ordinal safety score that reflects landing suitability. With real-time inference (textbackslashsim0.02 s/frame), the model supports onboard deployment and rapid decision-making in time-critical situations. Extensive experiments on five diverse datasets demonstrate OR-SLZNet effectiveness and strong generalization across a wide range of structural complexities. © 2020 IEEE.
2.
Abdollahzadeh, S.; Proulx, P. -L.; Allili, M. S.; Lapointe, J. -F.
Safe Landing Zones Detection for UAVs Using Deep Regression Proceedings Article
In: Proceedings - 2022 19th Conference on Robots and Vision, CRV 2022, pp. 213–218, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2022, ISBN: 978-1-66549-774-9.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Aerial vehicle, Air navigation, Aircraft detection, Antennas, Automatic unmanned aerial vehicle navigation, Deep learning, Deep regression, Landing, Landing zones, Safe landing, Safe landing zone, Semantic segmentation, Semantics, Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), Urban areas, Vehicle navigation, Zone detection
@inproceedings{abdollahzadeh_safe_2022,
title = {Safe Landing Zones Detection for UAVs Using Deep Regression},
author = {S. Abdollahzadeh and P. -L. Proulx and M. S. Allili and J. -F. Lapointe},
url = {https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85138466098&doi=10.1109%2fCRV55824.2022.00035&partnerID=40&md5=9183f6cd002c8a9068716faf66da72ec},
doi = {10.1109/CRV55824.2022.00035},
isbn = {978-1-66549-774-9},
year = {2022},
date = {2022-01-01},
booktitle = {Proceedings - 2022 19th Conference on Robots and Vision, CRV 2022},
pages = {213–218},
publisher = {Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.},
abstract = {Finding safe landing zones (SLZ) in urban areas and natural scenes is one of the many challenges that must be overcome in automating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) navigation. Using passive vision sensors to achieve this objective is a very promising avenue due to their low cost and the potential they provide for performing simultaneous terrain analysis and 3D reconstruction. In this paper, we propose using a deep learning approach on UAV imagery to assess the SLZ. The model is built on a semantic segmentation architecture whereby thematic classes of the terrain are mapped into safety scores for UAV landing. Contrary to past methods, which use hard classification into safe/unsafe landing zones, our approach provides a continuous safety map that is more practical for an emergency landing. Experiments on public datasets have shown promising results. © 2022 IEEE.},
keywords = {Aerial vehicle, Air navigation, Aircraft detection, Antennas, Automatic unmanned aerial vehicle navigation, Deep learning, Deep regression, Landing, Landing zones, Safe landing, Safe landing zone, Semantic segmentation, Semantics, Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), Urban areas, Vehicle navigation, Zone detection},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}
Finding safe landing zones (SLZ) in urban areas and natural scenes is one of the many challenges that must be overcome in automating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) navigation. Using passive vision sensors to achieve this objective is a very promising avenue due to their low cost and the potential they provide for performing simultaneous terrain analysis and 3D reconstruction. In this paper, we propose using a deep learning approach on UAV imagery to assess the SLZ. The model is built on a semantic segmentation architecture whereby thematic classes of the terrain are mapped into safety scores for UAV landing. Contrary to past methods, which use hard classification into safe/unsafe landing zones, our approach provides a continuous safety map that is more practical for an emergency landing. Experiments on public datasets have shown promising results. © 2022 IEEE.