Ground risk vs. Efficiency in Urban Drone Operations

This paper explores tradeoffs between ground impact and efficiency of drone flights in urban scenarios. We give an algorithm which produces a set of routes with different lengths and varying number of people affected by the drone. We also present an interactive online visualization tool allowing the user to modify flightpaths in order to explore routing options. Our path finder and the GUI are implemented for a metropolitan area of Norrköping municipality in Sweden. The methods studied in this paper may give UTM service provider the tools to negotiate flightplans which will be acceptable by both the regulator and the drone operator.