Unmanned ground/aerial vehicle system having autonomous ground vehicle that remotely controls one or more aerial vehicles

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9625904-B2
Application number	US-201514666707-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 24, 2015
Priority date	Mar 24, 2015
Publication date	Apr 18, 2017
Grant date	Apr 18, 2017

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 ground on a surface of the earth in a direction of travel;
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 autonomous ground vehicle in its a direction of travel;
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 an aerial path in response to flight commands received from the on-board on-ground control system;
wherein the aerial vehicle has a communications interface for receiving the flight commands;
wherein the aerial vehicle carries in-sky perception sensors having a field of view that contains at least a portion of a ground path to be followed by the autonomous ground vehicle
wherein the field of view of the on-board on-ground perception sensors further contains the aerial vehicle;
where the on-board on-ground control system further has a perception process that receives perception data from the on-board on-ground perception sensors and perception data from the in-sky perception sensors, and further has a localization process that uses the perception data to locate the aerial vehicle in a frame of reference of the autonomous ground vehicle, and further has a perception area process that combines the perception data; and
further has a movement manager process that uses the combined perception data to determine the ground path for the autonomous ground vehicle and an aerial path for the aerial vehicle;
wherein the movement manager process calculates at least part of the ground path in response to perception data from the in-sky perception sensors, and further calculates at least part of the aerial path in response to perception data from the on-board on-ground perception sensors.

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

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

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

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the autonomous 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

• G05D2201/0207

  Physics · mapped topic

• G05D1/024

  in combination with a laser (lasers per se H01S) · CPC title

• G05D1/028

  using a RF signal · CPC title