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AssigneeAeroVironment, Inc.
InventorsChristopher E. Fisher, Thomas Robert Szarek, Justin B. McAllister, Pavel Belik
Estimating the term…
An aircraft defining an upright orientation and an inverted orientation, a ground station; and a control system for remotely controlling the flight of the aircraft. The ground station has an auto-land function that causes the aircraft to invert, stall, and controllably land in the inverted orientation to protect a payload and a rudder extending down from the aircraft. In the upright orientation, the ground station depicts the view from a first aircraft camera. When switching to the inverted orientation: (1) the ground station depicts the view from a second aircraft camera, (2) the aircraft switches the colors of red and green wing lights, extends the ailerons to act as inverted flaps, and (3) the control system adapts a ground station controller for the inverted orientation. The aircraft landing gear is an expanded polypropylene pad located above the wing when the aircraft is in the upright orientation.
A method of rapidly descending an aircraft to land at a landing location, the aircraft having a wing including an upper surface and a lower surface defining an upright orientation for normal aircraft flight, and an inverted orientation for inverted flight, the upper surface being gravitationally above the lower surface while in the upright orientation, and the lower surface being gravitationally above the upper surface while in the inverted orientation, comprising:
An unmanned aircraft system, comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.