The Price of a Safe Flight: Risk Cost Based Path Planning

A risk aware UAS path planning methodology is proposed using monetary value as the sole cost metric. A third party ground risk model is used to generate a non-uniform costmap for a modified A* heuristic search. The Value of a Prevented Fatality provides a basis to convert fatality risk to monetary value terms as a Human Value at Risk (HVaR) measure. Additional operating and UAS Capital Value at Risk (CVaR) costs are modelled to provide a holistic monetary cost model for path cost minimisation. A number of future cost variants are investigated based upon prior work for a realistic urban-rural mix logistics case study in Southern England. Results show increasingly risk averse paths with decreasing future UAS operating costs.