Spy Drone Echolocates to Map Room in 3-D
Bats do it, subs do it, and vision-impaired people do it too. So why can’t a drone echolocate? This little drone can, and will give you an accurate layout of any enclosed space in three dimensions.
The secret lies in the drone’s ‘sonar bubble’, generated by shooting ultrasonic waves from ‘sonar lobes’ that overlap, giving a stereo data stream to the controller that generates a “3-D spatial imaging of the physical environment in which the UAV is currently moving or positioned.”
Couple an image of the room with the drone’s gyroscopes, magnetometers and accelerometers, and you can really boogie through just about any cluttered environment.
Here is Claim 1: A UAV containing a drive system for propelling the UAV through a spatial environment:
- a controller for controlling the drive system and overseeing operation of the UAV;
- a multiplicity of sonar emitters associated with different axes of travel of the UAV, each sonar emitter producing a sonar lobe extending outwardly in a specified direction along each of said different axes of travel, the sonar lobes combining to encapsulate the UAV in a sonar bubble;
- and a multiplicity of sonar detectors, each axis of travel associated with a plurality of sonar detectors, wherein the sonar detectors are coupled to the controller to permit the controller, in response to echoes reflected off objects within the sonar bubble, to interpret and then generate a 3-D image of the spatial environment in which the UAV is stationary or moving and within which spatial environment the objects are stationary or moving;
- and wherein the controller is configured or arranged automatically to moderate the drive system in response to an assessed position of objects in the 3-D image relative to the UAV such that the controller independently controls movement of the UAV through the spatial environment along each axes of travel.
Title: “MICRO UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE AND METHOD OF CONTROL THEREFOR”
US Patent Application Publication No: 20150160658
Filed (GB): October 22, 2012
Published: June 11, 2015
