Delivery drone related system and method

A method for directing a drone to a landing space in a lot having a plurality of landing spaces, comprising the following steps performed by a given landing space associated electronic control unit adapted to assist in landing a dispatched drone:

• a) wirelessly receiving a landing order from a management system for overseeing landing space availability, a given control unit having a known geographical location being specified in the landing order;
• b) scanning all associated landing spaces by computer vision means provided with one or more stereoscopic cameras or a LIDAR scanner for determining landing space occupancy;
• c) locally determining, with images acquired by said computer vision means, whether the associated landing spaces are unoccupied by an obstacle or a bystander;
• d) upon determining that the associated landing spaces are unoccupied by an obstacle or a bystander, transmitting an availability signal to said management system;
• e) receiving a respond signal from said management system indicative that the dispatched drone has commenced a landing operation with respect to the associated landing spaces;
• and
• f) operating a laser that visually generates a visual identifier provided at one or more of the associated landing spaces which, when captured by an image sensor on board the dispatched drone, facilitates processing of data associated with the captured visual identifier so as to authenticate correctness of a specified landing space and to direct the dispatched drone to a specific location within the specified landing space using instructions stored in the visual identifier and directing the dispatched drone to one of the plurality of associated landing spaces.

An outside area deployed control unit for assisting in directing a delivery drone to a landing space in the outside area, comprising:

• a) a microcontroller;
• b) computer vision means for locally determining in conjunction with said microcontroller whether landing space worthy regions of the outside area in which said control unit is deployed are unoccupied;
• c) a communication module for facilitating communication in one or more data networks with a management system for overseeing landing space availability and with a delivery drone specified in a landing order issued by said management system following receiving determination in conjunction with said computer vision means that the outside area associated with said unit includes at least one unoccupied landing space worthy region;
• d) a microcontroller for generating a dynamic landing space within said at least one unoccupied landing space worthy region that is sufficiently large for said specified drone to land upon;
• and
• e) a laser that is configured to visually generate a visual identifier at said generated dynamic landing space for authenticating correctness of said generated dynamic landing space.