Safe Recovery Techniques for Drone Operations

An aircraft designed for safe emergency landings, particularly for drones that uses a fixed parachute and proper center of gravity positioning. The aircraft has a parachute with a rigid frame that is permanently open and connected to the body. The center of gravity is located below the aerodynamic center. These features allow the aircraft to enter a passive parachuting mode without power and descend vertically with stability and a controlled descent rate.

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Launching and retrieving an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from a moving carrier using an automated system that moves a pad for the UAV to attach to. The system uses a mechanical arm to position the pad to align with the UAV's flight path for launching and retrieval. This allows the launching and recovery of the UAV without needing to stop the carrier or land the UAV.

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A multimodal sensor-based autonomous landing system for aircraft that leverages beacon infrastructure at landing sites along with onboard cameras, ranging radios, and GPS to provide precise, low latency, and robust autonomous landing guidance. The landing system uses multimodal sensing modes, including visual, radio range, and GPS, to accurately localize the aircraft relative to beacons and visual indicators at the landing site. This enables autonomous aircraft to land precisely at designated points in varied conditions using onboard perception sensors and multimodal beacon infrastructure instead of relying solely on GPS.

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Drones and air mobility vehicles with deployable air flaps reduce rotation and impact during emergency landings when rotors fail. The vehicles have flaps on the rotor arms that can be deployed downward to create drag and counteract the yaw caused by a failed rotor. A controller detects rotor abnormalities and activates the flaps when needed. The flaps deploy in a specific order to minimize rotation.

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Modifying drones mid-flight to compensate for missing or damaged parts, enabling them to continue flight and land safely after an accident. If a drone detects damage to an arm during flight, it detaches the damaged arm and modifies the remaining arms to balance the drone. This involves realigning and adjusting the intact arms. The modified drone may have reduced performance but enough stability to complete the flight. It uses sensors to detect damage and a computer to calculate the arm adjustments.

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Buoyancy and impact recovery system (BIRS) for UAVs to enable safe recovery after failure or crashes over water. The BIRS has inflatable bladders to provide buoyancy when deployed. It also has sensors to detect threats, a controlled descent system to reduce impact speed, and a distress signal capability. If a failure is detected, it inflates the bladders to float the UAV on water and initiates a controlled descent. A distress signal is transmitted with the UAV's position for later recovery.

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A parachute system for unmanned drones that quickly deploys a parachute in emergency situations to prevent crashes. The system consists of a parachute, an ejection mechanism, and a small gas generator. When an onboard sensor detects an anomaly, it triggers the ejection mechanism to forcefully eject the gas generator-equipped module from the drone. Once separated, the gas generator ignites and fills the module with gas, rapidly deploying the attached parachute. The ejected module then descends under the parachute while the main drone is free to crash safely away from people or property.

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Deploying a visual navigation system for UAVs that provides reliable positioning when GPS signals are unavailable or unreliable. The technique involves placing multiple geo-fiducials around a landing pad, each with a unique offset and direction from a surveyed center point. The UAV uses computer vision to recognize and triangulate the geo-fiducials for precise navigation.

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A recovery system for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to prevent catastrophic crashes and damage when a UAV experiences critical failures. The recovery system has a parachute housed in an ejectable pod mounted on the UAV. Sensors monitor flight status and triggers like loss of power or communication. When a critical failure is detected, the pod is ejected, and the parachute deploys to slow the UAV's descent and prevent crashing.

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Flying apparatuses like drones have a safety mechanism to reduce damage or injury in case of an uncontrolled fall. The drone has multiple parachutes that can be ejected if an abnormality during flight is detected. The parachute deployment reduces the impact force if the drone crashes. Sensors detect the abnormality, and a control system ejects the parachutes from the drone to slow their fall and prevent them from crashing at high speed.

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A docking system for drones that provides a method for precision landing and automatic docking with a drone landing pad. The system uses a wire and tension adjusters on the landing pad to catch and slow down the landing drone. The tension adjusters wind the wire to adjust the tension and position. The drone has a magnetic unit that locks onto the landing pad after landing. This allows precise positioning and automatic attachment without requiring onboard sensors.

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Landing devices for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that do not have image capture capabilities to land on. The landing device has a landing platform to receive the UAV but also includes an opening/closing mechanism to enclose the platform when not in use. When a UAV approaches, the mechanism opens to expose the platform for landing. A position recognition system tracks the UAV, and a remote control guides it. The enclosed platform prevents unauthorized access or package theft.

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A suspended landing and take-off base for unmanned aerial vehicles that allows self-centering landings without requiring precise alignment. The base has a conical shape that funnels drones towards a central retaining mechanism. The retaining mechanism can grip the drone during landing and release it for takeoff, allowing the drone to autonomously hook onto the base even if it approaches off-center.

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A drone delivery system hub for enabling efficient unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) parcel delivery without needing a manual labor workforce. The hub has a center shaft supporting a parcel-conveying system for moving packages. Multiple structural arms extend from the shaft with drone-conveying systems to launch and retrieve UAVs. A rotatable linking conveyor span connects the arms. UAVs take off and land on the span to exchange packages in the shaft. The hub also has battery stations and diagnostics along the arms. The design allows simultaneous UAV operations, selective take-off directions, and compact storage/loading.

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Reliable in-flight recovery of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) by a host aircraft during forward flight. The recovery system involves deploying a vertical towline from the host aircraft, which captures a fitting on the UAV. The UAV has deployable flaps that secure the fitting once captured. The towline is reeled in to recover the UAV.

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Airborne recovery of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) by deploying a near-vertical towline from the host aircraft that the target UAV captures with movable flaps. Once engaged, the host aircraft retracts the towline to tow the UAV to recovery.

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An autonomous system for capturing, retaining, and releasing a small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from a moving landing platform. The system uses multiple automated capture mechanisms that extend and retract to grab and release the UAV. This allows the UAV to be secured to the platform after landing, recharged, and released for takeoff without needing manual intervention. The extending capture arms engage with a retention ring on the UAV to hold it in place on the moving platform.

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Protective and retrieval system to save drones from crashing into water bodies. It uses an inflatable flotation device that can be deployed to prevent a crashed drone from sinking. The system monitors onboard sensors, flight system status, and remote commands to detect crashes. When a crash is detected, it triggers an actuation device to inflate the flotation device. This keeps the drone afloat after impact and prevents it from sinking.

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Automatic deployment of a parachute from a drone to safely land the drone during failures. The system has a parachute deployment subsystem that can automatically trigger parachute deployment in response to drone failures like freefall, loss of control, or component malfunctions. It uses onboard sensors to detect failures and deploy the parachute. A manual trigger is also provided from a ground unit. A parachute landing system like a shroud to protect rotors during deployment is also described.

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Intelligent method for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to return to the user. When the UAV needs to return due to low battery or other condition, it calculates a second return point based on the current user location. If the user has moved far from the initial launch point, the UAV returns to the new location rather than the original point. This provides a more convenient and user-friendly return experience.

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