Indoor altitude determination for aerial vehicles
AssigneeAmazon Technologies, Inc.
InventorDan-Adrian Dutescu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An aerial vehicle equipped with a first range sensor oriented to capture range data above the aerial vehicle and a second range sensor oriented to capture range data below the aerial vehicle is programmed with global map of an indoor space, including an upper global map representing distance data for upper surfaces of the indoor space and a lower global map representing distance data for lower surfaces of the indoor space. An offset to an altitude is calculated based on a comparison between range data captured by the first range sensor and the upper global map, and range data captured by the second range sensor and the lower global map. Additionally, global maps may be updated based on returns captured by the range sensors, where such data indicates the presence of a previously undetected object.
Claims22
A method comprising:
- storing a first set of distance values;
- determining, based at least in part on data generated by a first range sensor of an unmanned aerial vehicle, a second set of distance values;
- determining, based at least in part on pose data for the unmanned aerial vehicle, that a first distance value of the second set of distance values corresponds to a second distance value of the first set of distance values;
- determining an optimized value for a first variable based at least in part on a deviation function, wherein an output value of the deviation function is minimized based at least in part on determining that the first distance value corresponds to the second distance value;
- determining an altitude of the unmanned aerial vehicle based at least in part on the optimized value;
- and
- updating the second distance value of the first set of values based at least in part on the altitude.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.