Semantics based safe landing area detection for an unmanned vehicle

A method for determining a suitable landing area for an aircraft, comprising:

• receiving signals indicative of terrain information for a terrain via a three-dimension (3D) perception system;
• receiving signals indicative of image information for the terrain via a camera perception system, the image information separate from the terrain information;
• evaluating, with the processor, the terrain information and generating information indicative of a landing zone candidate region;
• co-registering in a coordinate system, with the processor, the landing zone candidate region and the image information;
• segmenting, with the processor, an image region from the image information corresponding to the landing zone candidate region to generate segmented regions;
• classifying, with the processor, the segmented regions into semantic classes;
• determining, with the processor, contextual information from a contextual model and using the contextual information to detect an error in at least one semantic classes;
• and
• ranking and prioritizing the semantic classes.