Initial location determination of uncrewed aerial vehicles from uncalibrated location observations

A computer-implemented method comprising:

• determining a cluster-portion observation data corresponding to an aerial image of a portion of a ground-based cluster of charging pads for aerial vehicles, wherein;
• the ground-based cluster comprises the charging pads arranged in a layout and a plurality of fiducial markers distributed at positions across the layout,
• the aerial image was captured by an aerial vehicle (i) after the aerial vehicle initiated a flight from a particular charging pad within the portion of the ground-based cluster, (ii) while hovering above the particular charging pad, and (iii) prior to calibration of a navigation system of the aerial vehicle, and
• the cluster-portion observation data comprises (i) information indicating a position of the particular charging pad and (ii) positions of one or more fiducial markers within the portion of the ground-based cluster relative to the particular charging pad;
• identifying at least one mapped fiducial marker in a stored reference map of the ground-based cluster that matches at least one of the one or more fiducial markers in the cluster-portion observation data;
• identifying a mapped charging pad in the stored reference map as a match to the particular charging pad in the cluster-portion observation data, wherein the mapped charging pad is identified based on the at least one mapped fiducial marker and its position in the stored reference map relative to the mapped charging pad;
• determining a geolocation and an orientation of the particular charging pad according to a recorded geolocation and orientation for the identified mapped charging pad;
• determining, based on the geolocation and the orientation of the particular charging pad, location information indicating an initial geolocation of the aerial vehicle after the aerial vehicle initiated the flight from the particular charging pad;
• and
• causing the aerial vehicle to operate based on the location information to perform the calibration of the navigation system of the aerial vehicle.

An article of manufacture including a non-transitory computer-readable medium, having stored thereon program instructions that, upon execution by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:

• determining a cluster-portion observation data corresponding to an aerial image of a portion of a ground-based cluster of charging pads for aerial vehicles, wherein:
• the ground-based cluster comprises the charging pads arranged in a layout and a plurality of fiducial markers distributed at positions across the layout,
• the aerial image was captured by an aerial vehicle (i) after the aerial vehicle initiated a flight from a particular charging pad within the portion of the ground-based cluster, (ii) while hovering above the particular charging pad, and (iii) prior to calibration of a navigation system of the aerial vehicle, and
• the cluster-portion observation data comprises (i) information indicating a position of the particular charging pad and (ii) positions of one or more fiducial markers within the portion of the ground-based cluster relative to the particular charging pad;
• identifying at least one mapped fiducial marker in a stored reference map of the ground-based cluster that matches at least one of the one or more fiducial markers in the cluster-portion observation data;
• identifying a mapped charging pad in the stored reference map as a match to the particular charging pad in the cluster-portion observation data, wherein the mapped charging pad is identified based on the at least one mapped fiducial marker and its position in the stored reference map relative to the mapped charging pad;
• determining a geolocation and an orientation of the particular charging pad according to a recorded geolocation and orientation for the identified mapped charging pad;
• determining, based on the geolocation and the orientation of the particular charging pad, location information indicating an initial geolocation of the aerial vehicle after the aerial vehicle initiated the flight from the particular charging pad;
• and
• causing the aerial vehicle to operate based on the location information to perform the calibration of the navigation system of the aerial vehicle.