Systems and methods for flight planning for conducting surveys by autonomous aerial vehicles

A method of flight planning for an autonomous aerial vehicle to survey a survey target, wherein the survey target is an aircraft, the method comprising:

• receiving, by at least one processor of a flight planning system, a request for flight planning, the request identifying the survey target for the autonomous aerial vehicle;
• retrieving, by the at least one processor, at least one model for the survey target from a database, wherein the at least one model includes a wireframe model or a polygon mesh and wherein the database includes
• a database including models of manufactured articles based on original equipment manufacturer (OEM) specifications or computer aided design (CAD) models, wherein the database including models of manufactured articles is an aircraft database;
• computing, by the at least one processor, a flight plan that completely surveys the survey target based on the retrieved at least one model, wherein the flight plan defines a search pattern with position values including computing the flight plan with relative position values that are defined relative to a reference location on the survey target, receiving a current location of the survey target, and converting the relative position values to absolute geodetic position values using the current location, wherein the flight plan includes top surfaces, side surfaces and underside surfaces of the survey target, wherein the flight plan is computed to take into account a number of factors including one or any combination of:
• minimizing climbs and descents;
• minimizing energy consumption;
• maintaining a tolerance separation distance of the autonomous aerial vehicle and the survey target;
• fitting of predetermined types of search patterns to the at least one model of the survey target;
• minimizing return to base operations for refueling or battery replacement;
• and
• maximizing coverage of the at least one model of the survey target;
• uplinking, by the at least one processor, the flight plan to the autonomous aerial vehicle including the absolute geodetic position values;
• and
• the autonomous aerial vehicle surveying the survey target based on the uplinked flight plan, wherein the autonomous vehicle has an image capture device mounted thereto for capturing image data in three dimensions, the further method comprising:
• three dimensional imaging of the survey target as part of the complete survey.