In the last decade, with the wide application of UAVs in post-earthquake relief operations, the images and videos of affected areas obtained by UAVs immediately after a seismic event have become an important source of information for post-earthquake rapid assessment, which is crucial for initiating effective emergency response operations. In this study, we first consider the kinematic constraints of UAV and the Dubins curve is introduced to fit the shortest flyable path for each UAV that meets the maximum curvature constraint. Second, based on the actual requirements of post-earthquake rapid assessment, heterogeneous UAVs, multi-depot launching, and targets allowed access to multiple times, the paper proposes a multi-UAV rapid-assessment routing problem (MURARP). The MURARP is modeled as the multi-depot revisit-allowed Dubins TOP with variable profit (MD-RDTOP-VP) which is a variant of the team orienteering problem (TOP). Third, a hybrid genetic simulated annealing (HGSA) algorithm is developed to solve the problem. The result of numerical experiments shows that the HGSA algorithm can quickly plan flyable paths for heterogeneous UAVs to maximize the expected profit. Finally, a case study based on real data of the 2017 Jiuzhaigou earthquake in China shows how the method can be applied in a post-earthquake scenario.

As unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) remote sensing is applied in small area aerial photogrammetry surveying, disaster monitoring and emergency command, 3D urban construction and other fields, the image processing of UAV has become a hot topic in current research. The precise matching of UAV image is a key problem, which affects the subsequent processing precision directly, such as 3D reconstruction and automatic aerial triangulation, etc. At present, SIFT (Scale Invariant Feature Transform) algorithm proposed by DAVID G. LOWE as the main method is, is widely used in image matching, since its strong stability to image rotation, shift, scaling, and the change of illumination conditions. It has been successfully applied in target recognition, SFM (Structure from Motion), and many other fields. SIFT algorithm needs the colour images to be converted into grayscale images, detects extremum points under different scales and uses neighbourhood pixels to generate descriptor. As we all know that UAV images with rich colour information, the SIFT algorithm improved through combining with the image colour information in this paper, the experiments are conducted from matching efficiency and accuracy compared with the original SIFT algorithm. The results show that the method which proposed in this paper decreases on the efficiency, but is improved on the precision and provides a basis choice for matching method.

At present, there are more than 280,000 hidden danger points of geological disasters in China. It has been proved that one of effective ways of reducing geological disasters is using professional equipment to monitor and mobilize the masses. The commonly professional devices include slope radar, crack gauge, laser radar and optical images in early warning period and in rescue phase. Each device has its own unique advantages and we developed a reasonable technical route to achieve the aim that combining the advantages of these various data. The mainly steps: the first step is to process the various data separately; secondly, to fuse the data that can be merged; thirdly, to perform overlay analysis and display on non-integratable data. We takes the high-level landslide of Xinmo Village, Sichuan Province on June 24, 2017 to verify the route’s effective. The results show that the multi-data fusion method can not only achieved the all-round monitoring of key hidden points, but also combined the advantages of multiple data and achieved millimetre-level monitoring accuracy and clear and intuitive effects.