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US 10,049,589 B1Granted
Obstacle awareness based guidance to clear landing space
AssigneeAmazon Technologies, Inc.
InventorsScott Patrick Boyd, Chengwu Cui, Sarah Graber, Barry James O'Brien, Joshua John Watson, Scott Michael Wilcox
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Techniques for providing an object awareness guidance to clear a landing space may be provided. For example, during delivery an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) may capture an image of a potential landing zone and identify one or more objects in the image that may impede or obstruct delivery of the item in the potential landing zone. The UAV may be configured to generate and provide instructions to a user device to move or remove the identified one or more objects from the potential landing zone thereby creating a safe and unobstructed landing zone to deliver the item.
Claims17
A computer-implemented method, comprising:
- receiving, by a computer system, an order to deliver a package associated with an electronic marketplace;
- generating, by the computer system, a flight plan that instructs an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to deliver the package to a location based in part on information associated with the order;
- receiving, by the computer system and from the UAV upon arriving at the location, a first image of an area associated with the location, the area including a landing marker utilized to guide the UAV to deliver the package;
- identifying, by the computer system, one or more objects in the area utilizing the first image;
- determining a time period in which to attempt to communicate with a user device associated with the location upon identifying the one or more objects in the area based at least in part on a distance between the location and an origination location for the UAV;
- transmitting, by the computer system and to the user device, instructions for moving the one or more objects in the area based at least in part on the time period;
- and
- instructing, by the computer system, the UAV to land and deliver the package on the landing marker in response to receiving a second image of the area that does not include the one or more objects.
5 more elements
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), comprising:
- an image capture component;
- a set of propellers associated with a propulsion system configured to provide propulsion for the UAV;
- and
- a computing system configured to manage the propulsion system during a flight associated with a delivery of a payload and further configured to instruct the UAV to:
- determine, by the computing system, arrival at a location associated with a delivery order for an item;
- obtain, via the image capture component, a first image of an area of the location, the area including a landing marker;
- identify, by the computing system, an object in the area utilizing the obtained first image;
- transmit, by the computing system and to a user device associated with the location, a notification that identifies the object in the area;
- and
- identify, by the computing system, an alternate area associated with the location based at least in part on the first image, the alternate area including another landing marker.
7 more elements
A computer-implemented method, comprising:
- generating, by a computer system, a flight plan that instructs an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to deliver a package to a location based in part on information associated with an order for the package;
- receiving, by the computer system and from the UAV upon arriving at the location, a first image of an area associated with the location, the area including a landing marker utilized to guide the UAV to deliver the package;
- identifying, by the computer system, one or more objects in the area utilizing the first image;
- determining, by the computer system, a time period in which to attempt to communicate with a user device associated with the location upon identifying the one or more objects in the area based at least in part on a distance between the location and an origination location for the UAV;
- transmitting, by the computer system and to the user device, instructions for moving the one or more objects in the area based at least in part on the time period;
- in response to receiving, by the computer system and from the UAV, a second image of the area:
- identifying, by the computer system, that the area does not include the one or more objects;
- and
- instructing, by the computer system, the UAV to land and deliver the package on the landing marker in response to identifying that the area does not include the one or more objects.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.