Unmanned aerial vehicle area surveying
AssigneeSkydio, Inc.
InventorsPatrick Michael Bouffard, Bernard J. Michini
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods, systems and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media for an unmanned aerial vehicle aerial survey. One of the methods includes receiving information specifying a location to be inspected by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the inspection including the UAV capturing images of the location. Information describing a boundary of the location to be inspected is obtained. Inspections to be assigned to the location are determined, with the inspection legs being parallel and separated by a particular width. A flight pattern is determined based on a minimum turning radius of the UAV, with the flight pattern specifying an order each inspection leg is to be navigated along, and a direction of the navigation.
Claims30
A flight planning system for selecting an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to navigate according to a flight pattern, the flight planning system comprising:
- a data store storing configuration information associated with multiple UAVs available for an aerial inspection of an area to be inspected;
- a processor;
- and
- a non-transitory storage medium storing instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
- determine a geofence boundary for the area, wherein flight operations in the area are limited to locations within the geofence boundary;
- determine a flight pattern within the area according to the geofence boundary, the flight pattern including a plurality of inspection legs being substantially parallel to one another in which adjacent inspection legs throughout the flight pattern are separated by a particular width, wherein at least a first set of two adjacent inspection legs are to be traversed in the same direction, wherein each inspection leg is associated with a performance of an aerial inspection of the area along the inspection leg;
- determine a navigation order for each inspection leg, wherein the navigation order skips inspection legs and then returns to inspection legs that are skipped when navigating according to the flight pattern, wherein the navigation order is determined, while the UAV is in flight, based, at least in part, on information identifying a minimum turning radius of the UAV and the particular width;
- determine, from amongst the multiple UAVs, a UAV configured to perform the aerial inspection of the area according to the flight pattern based on the configuration information within the data store;
- and
- direct the UAV to autonomously navigate along each inspection leg according to the determined flight pattern.
A non-transitory computer storage medium storing instructions operable to cause one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
- determining a geofence boundary for an area to be inspected, wherein flight operations in the area are limited to locations within the geofence boundary;
- determining a flight pattern according to the geofence boundary, the flight pattern including a plurality of inspection legs being substantially parallel to one another in which adjacent inspection legs throughout the flight pattern are separated by a particular width, wherein at least a first set of two adjacent inspection legs are to be traversed in the same direction, wherein each inspection leg is associated with a performance of an aerial inspection of the area along the inspection leg;
- determine a navigation order for each inspection leg, wherein the navigation order skips inspection legs and then returns to inspection legs that are skipped when navigating according to the flight pattern, wherein the navigation order is determined, while the UAV is in flight, based, at least in part, on information identifying a minimum turning radius of the UAV and the particular width;
- determining, from amongst multiple UAVs for which configuration information is available, a UAV configured to perform the aerial inspection of the area according to the flight pattern based on the configuration information;
- and
- outputting the flight pattern for use by the UAV.
A computerized method, the method comprising:
- determining a flight pattern for an aerial inspection of an area, the flight pattern including a plurality of inspection legs being substantially parallel to one another in which adjacent inspection legs throughout the flight pattern are separated by a particular width, wherein at least a first set of two adjacent inspection legs are to be traversed in the same direction, wherein each inspection leg is associated with a performance of an aerial inspection of the area along the inspection leg;
- determining a navigation order for each inspection leg, wherein the navigation order skips inspection legs and then returns to inspection legs that are skipped when navigating according to the flight pattern, wherein the navigation order is determined, while the UAV is in flight, based, at least in part, on information identifying a minimum turning radius of the UAV and the particular width;
- determining, based on capabilities of multiple UAVs available for the aerial inspection of the area, a UAV configured to perform the aerial inspection of the area according to the flight pattern;
- and
- directing the UAV to autonomously navigate along each inspection leg according to the determined flight pattern.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.