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AssigneeGoogle Inc.
InventorsWilliam Graham Patrick, James Ryan Burgess, Andrew Conrad
Estimating the term…
Embodiments described herein may help to provide medical support via a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). An illustrative UAV may include a housing, a payload, a line-deployment mechanism coupled to the housing and a line, and a payload-release mechanism that couples the line to the payload, wherein the payload-release mechanism is configured to release the payload from the line. The UAV may further include a control system configured to determine that the UAV is located at or near a delivery location and responsively: operate the line-deployment mechanism according to a variable deployment-rate profile to lower the payload to or near to the ground, determine that the payload is touching or is within a threshold distance from the ground, and responsively operate the payload-release mechanism to release the payload from the line.
A method comprising:
The method of claim 14, wherein determining the variable deployment-rate profile comprises determining two or more deployment rates and a corresponding line length for each deployment rate, wherein each friction level indicates how much friction should be applied to the line when the line has been deployed to the corresponding line length.
The method of claim 15, wherein each deployment rate corresponds to an amount of friction to be applied to the line by the line-deployment mechanism.
The method of claim 14, wherein determining the variable deployment-rate profile comprises determining the variable deployment-rate profile based on one or more of (a) a height of the UAV, (b) wind data, (c) environmental data, and/or (d) payload characteristics.
The method of claim 14, wherein detecting the at least one release indication that the payload has been lowered to a release point comprises determining that the payload is touching the ground.
The method of claim 14, wherein detecting the at least one release indication comprises determining that the payload is touching the ground.
The method of claim 14, wherein determining the variable deployment-rate profile further comprises determining at least one hovering height for the UAV.
The method of claim 14, further comprising:
A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored therein instructions executable by a computing device to cause the computing device to perform functions comprising:
The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 23, wherein determining the variable deployment-rate profile comprises determining two or more deployment rates and a corresponding line length for each deployment rate, wherein each friction level indicates how much friction should be applied to the line when the line has been deployed to the corresponding line length.
The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 23, wherein detecting the at least one release indication comprises determining that the payload is within a threshold distance from the ground.
The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 23, wherein detecting the at least one release indication comprises determining that the payload is touching the ground.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.