System and method for controlling an aerial drone for exploring off-road trails
AssigneesToyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc., Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorJohn-Michael McNew
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system includes a processor and a memory in communication with the processor. The memory includes instructions that cause the processor to determine, based on images of an off-road trail captured by an aerial drone in communication with a vehicle, whether the off-road trail has a positive condition indicating that the vehicle can traverse the off-road trail or an abandonment condition indicating that the vehicle cannot traverse the off-road trail. Depending on the determination, the processor either controls the aerial drone to navigate along the off-road trail or controls the aerial drone to navigate to a different off-road trail.
Claims20
A system comprising:
- a processor;
- a memory in communication with the processor, the memory including an instruction module having instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
- determine, based on images of a first off-road trail captured by an aerial drone in communication with a vehicle, whether the first off-road trail has a positive condition indicating that the vehicle can physically traverse the first off-road trail or an abandonment condition indicating that the vehicle cannot physically traverse the first off-road trail due to an encumbrance that prevents the vehicle from traversing the first off-road trail;
- and
- control the aerial drone to navigate to a second off-road trail when the first off-road trail has the abandonment condition.
A method comprising steps of:
- determining, based on images of a first off-road trail captured by an aerial drone in communication with a vehicle, whether the first off-road trail has a positive condition indicating that the vehicle can physically traverse the first off-road trail or an abandonment condition indicating that the vehicle physically cannot traverse the first off-road trail due to an encumbrance that prevents the vehicle from traversing the first off-road trail;
- and
- controlling the aerial drone to navigate to a second off-road trail when the first off-road trail has the abandonment condition.
A non-transitory computer-readable medium including instructions that, when executed by a processor, causes the processor to:
- determine, based on images of a first off-road trail captured by an aerial drone in communication with a vehicle, whether the first off-road trail has a positive condition indicating that the vehicle can physically traverse the first off-road trail or an abandonment condition indicating that the vehicle cannot physically traverse the first off-road trail due to an encumbrance that prevents the vehicle from traversing the first off-road trail;
- and
- control the aerial drone to navigate to a second off-road trail when the first off-road trail has the abandonment condition.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.