Unmanned Ground/Aerial Vehicle System Having Autonomous Ground Vehicle That Remotely Controls One or More Aerial Vehicles

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016282864-A1
Application number	US-201514666707-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Mar 24, 2015
Priority date	Mar 24, 2015
Publication date	Sep 29, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

An unmanned vehicle system, having at least one autonomous ground vehicle (A-GV) and at least one remote controlled aerial vehicle (RC-AV). The A-GV autonomously navigates across the ground, and on-board perception sensors, whose field of view that contains at least a portion of the ground ahead of the direction of travel of the ground vehicle as well as the RC-GV. The RC-AV flies in response to commands received from the control system of the A-GV. The RC-AV has on-board in-sky perception sensors having a field of view that contains at least a portion of the ground path to be followed by the ground vehicle. The control system of the A-GV locate the aerial vehicle, receives perception data from the on-ground perception sensors and the in-sky perception sensors, and uses combined perception data to determine a ground path for itself and for the RC-AV.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . An unmanned vehicle system, comprising:
at least one autonomous ground vehicle operable to autonomously navigate across the ground; wherein the autonomous ground vehicle has a set of on-board on-ground perception sensors, which have a field of view that contains at least a portion of the ground ahead of the direction of travel of the ground vehicle; wherein the autonomous ground vehicle further has an on-board on-ground control system; at least one remote controlled aerial vehicle operable to fly in response to commands received from the on-ground control system; wherein the aerial vehicle has on-board in-sky perception sensors having a field of view that contains at least a portion of the ground path to be followed by the ground vehicle wherein the field of view of the on-ground perception sensors further contains the aerial vehicle; where the on-ground control system is operable to locate the aerial vehicle in a frame of reference of the ground vehicle, to receive perception data from the on-ground perception sensors and the in-sky perception sensors, to use the perception data to generate a combined perception area data, and to use the combined perception data to determine a ground path for the autonomous ground vehicle and an aerial path for the aerial vehicle.

2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein at least some of the perception sensors are imaging cameras.

4 . The system of claim 1 , wherein at least some of the perception sensors are ultrasonic sensors.

5 . The system of claim 1 , wherein at least some of the perception sensors are radar or lidar sensors.

6 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the ground vehicle communicates with the aerial vehicle via wi-fi.

Assignees

• Southwest Res Inst

Inventors

• Lamm Ryan D
• Mentzer Christopher I
• Kozak Kristopher C
• Alban Marc C
• Gassaway Jason C
• Garcia Richard D

Classifications

• B64U2201/20

  Remote controls · CPC title

• B64C2201/146

  Operations & Transport · mapped topic

• G05D1/0246

  using a video camera in combination with image processing means · CPC title

• G05D1/0088

  characterized by the autonomous decision making process, e.g. artificial intelligence, predefined behaviours (using knowledge based models G06N5/00) · CPC title

• G05D1/0255

  using acoustic signals, e.g. ultra-sonic singals (sonar systems designed for anti-collision purposes G01S15/93) · CPC title