Integrating air and ground data collection for improved drone operation
AssigneeJoby Aero, Inc.
InventorsIan Andreas Villa, Philipp Haban, Eric Mueller, Lucas McPhee Fischer, Matthew William Derkach, John Conway Badalamenti
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Disclosed are embodiments for employing off board sensors to augment data used by a ground based autonomous vehicle. In some aspects, the off-board sensors may be positioned on another autonomous vehicle, such as an aerial autonomous vehicle (AAV). The disclosed embodiments determine uncertainty scores associated with ground regions. The uncertainty scores indicate a need to reimage the ground regions. An AAV may be tasked to reimage a region having a relatively high uncertainty score, depending on a cost associated with the tasking.
Claims20
A computing system comprising:
- one or more hardware processors;
- and
- one or more tangible, non-transitory, computer readable media that collectively store instructions that when executed by the one or more hardware processors cause the computing system to perform operations comprising:
- obtaining data indicative of an initial route of an aerial vehicle and data indicative of one or more parameters associated with the aerial vehicle;
- obtaining location data indicative of a location of a ground vehicle;
- determining a deviation route for the aerial vehicle from the initial route of the aerial vehicle to a geographic area including the ground vehicle based on:
- the data indicative of the initial route of the aerial vehicle, and
- the location data indicative of the location of the ground vehicle;
- determining to reroute the aerial vehicle, from the initial route, along the deviation route to collect image data associated with the geographic area based at least in part on the one or more parameters associated with the aerial vehicle;
- and
- communicating one or more commands to the aerial vehicle to divert the aerial vehicle to travel along the deviation route to the geographic area.
A method, comprising:
- obtaining data indicative of an initial route of an aerial vehicle and data indicative of one or more parameters associated with the aerial vehicle;
- obtaining location data indicative of a location of a ground vehicle;
- determining a deviation route for the aerial vehicle from the initial route of the aerial vehicle to a geographic area including the ground vehicle based on:
- the data indicative of the initial route of the aerial vehicle, and
- the location data indicative of the location of the ground vehicle;
- determining to reroute the aerial vehicle, from the initial route, along the deviation route to collect image data associated with the geographic area based at least in part on the one or more parameters associated with the aerial vehicle;
- and
- communicating one or more commands to the aerial vehicle to divert the aerial vehicle to travel along the deviation route to the geographic area.
A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising instructions that when executed configure hardware processing circuitry to perform operations comprising:
- obtaining data indicative of an initial route of an aerial vehicle and data indicative of one or more parameters associated with the aerial vehicle;
- obtaining location data indicative of a location of a ground vehicle;
- determining a deviation route for the aerial vehicle from the initial route of the aerial vehicle to a geographic area including the ground vehicle based on:
- the data indicative of the initial route of the aerial vehicle, and
- the location data indicative of the location of the ground vehicle;
- determining to reroute the aerial vehicle, from the initial route, along the deviation route to collect image data associated with the geographic area based at least in part on the one or more parameters associated with the aerial vehicle;
- and
- communicating one or more commands to the aerial vehicle to divert the aerial vehicle to travel along the deviation route to the geographic area.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.