Invention Grant
- Patent Title: Unmanned aerial vehicle descent
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Application No.: US14863873Application Date: 2015-09-24
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Publication No.: US10088736B2Publication Date: 2018-10-02
- Inventor: Scott Raymond Harris , Stephen Thomas Safarik , Paul Viola
- Applicant: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
- Applicant Address: US WA Seattle
- Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
- Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
- Current Assignee Address: US WA Seattle
- Agency: Athorus, PLLC
- Main IPC: H04N9/47
- IPC: H04N9/47 ; G03B15/00 ; H04N7/18 ; G06K9/46 ; G06Q10/08 ; G06K9/00 ; G06T7/33 ; G06T7/50

Abstract:
Described are systems and methods for surveying a destination as an unmanned aerial vehicle (“UAV”) descends toward the destination. To confirm that the destination is clear of objects and includes a safe landing or delivery location, such as a substantially planar surface, the UAV may capture and process images at different altitudes during the descent. Feature points of a first image captured at a first altitude may be paired with feature points of a second image captured at a second, different altitude. A homography may be computed to confirm that the paired feature points lie in the same plane and then the two images may be registered based on the paired feature points. The registered images may then be processed to determine depth information and determine if descent of the UAV is to continue or be aborted.
Public/Granted literature
- US20170090271A1 UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE DESCENT Public/Granted day:2017-03-30
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