System and method for pet recreation and exercise employing an autonomous aerial vehicle

A system to engage domestic animals for recreation and exercise comprising:

• a pet;
• an autonomous aerial vehicle, comprising:
• a propulsion system;
• a supplied navigation and
• control system;
• batteries;
• and
• a radio transceiver;
• a remote control device delivered with the autonomous aerial vehicle;
• an onboard computer that interfaces with the autonomous aerial vehicle's supplied navigation and control system, such onboard computer system comprising:
• templates of domestic pet images derived from machine learning technology applied to a large database of animal images;
• computer program code logic that matches images captured by onboard cameras and other sensors to such templates;
• computer program code logic that calculates the pet's position;
• computer program code logic that causes the autonomous aerial vehicle to execute flight maneuvers in all three dimensions known to excite the interest of domestic pets and to engage them;
• an on onboard data structure;
• a proximity detector capable of interoperating with the onboard computer and the computer program code logic to calculate;
• a distance from the pet to the autonomous aerial vehicle and a rate at which that distance is changing;
• and
• computer program code logic that also causes the autonomous aerial vehicle to fly away from the pet when the proximity detector has determined;
• that the pet is within a predefined distance of the autonomous aerial vehicle and that the distance is diminishing at a rate greater than that at which the distance between the pet and the autonomous aerial vehicle is diminishing;
• a radio transmitter/receiver linked to the remote control device;
• a radio channel linking the radio transmitter/receiver in the autonomous aerial vehicle with the remote control device, allowing the remote control device and the autonomous aerial vehicle to exchange digital data pertaining to the autonomous aerial vehicle's position, the pet's position and activities and computer program code logic responses in the autonomous aerial vehicle's repertoire in real time, several times per second;
• all such elements being designed to be compatible with new models of autonomous aerial vehicles as they shall be improved from time to time.