302results about "Micro-sized aircraft" patented technology

A method and apparatus comprising a platform, a battery system, a power generation system, a number of charging stations, and a controller. The platform is configured to house a number of unmanned aerial vehicles. The power generation system is connected to the battery system. The power generation system is configured to generate electrical energy from an environment in which the platform is located, and store the electrical energy in the battery system. The number of charging stations is connected to the battery system. The controller is connected to the battery system and is configured to receive sensor data from the number of unmanned aerial vehicles, generate information from the sensor data, and send the information to a remote location.

A micro air vehicle (MAV) comprises features that emulate insect-like topology and flight, including a dangling three part body (100a, 100b, 100c), wing-like dual side rotors (107, 107a) positioned to either side on rotor arms (103) providing tilt and teeter motions to vector thrust and allow crawling along improved surfaces, and elevators (101) that approximate the center of gravity and center of pressure control employed by insects via the inertial reaction and aerodynamic influence of a repositionable abdomen. Control, sensing, surveillance, and payload elements (114), (401), (402), (403), (404), (405), and (407) enable transmission of surveillance and engagement of an emerging target. Left and right perch hangers and grapples (112, 112a) allow perching on various structures, and energy storage (504) and (505) combined with power line (500) and solar (502) energy scavenging circuitry allow extended loiter and mission duration by replenishing onboard energy supplies.

An unmanned air vehicle (“UAV”) apparatus is configured to have a body and a body-conformal wing. The body-conformal wing is configured to variably sweep from a closed position to a fully deployed position. In the closed position, the body-conformal wing span is aligned with the body axis and in the fully deployed position the body-conformal wing span is perpendicular to the axial direction of the body. Delivery of the UAV comprises the steps of: positioning the span of a body conformal wing in alignment with the axis of the body of the UAV; initiating the flight of the UAV; and adjusting the sweep angle of the body-conformal wing as a function of the current speed, altitude, or attack angle of the UAV, with the adjustment starting at a 0 degree position and varying between a closed position and a fully deployed position. The UAV also has a control mechanism configured to variably adjust the sweep of the body-conformal wing to achieve a high lift over drag ratio through out the flight path of the UAV.

A rotorcraft including a fuselage, one or more motor-driven rotors for vertical flight, and a control system. The motors drive the one or more rotors in either of two directions of rotation to provide for flight in either an upright or an inverted orientation. An orientation sensor is used to control the primary direction of thrust, and operational instructions and gathered information are automatically adapted based on the orientation of the fuselage with respect to gravity. The rotors are configured with blades that invert to conform to the direction of rotation.

A miniature, unmanned aircraft having interchangeable data handling modules, such as sensors for obtaining digital aerial imagery and other data, and radio transmitters and receivers for relaying data. The aircraft has a microprocessor for managing flight, remote control guidance system, and electrical supply system. The data handling modules have an aerodynamic housing and manual fasteners enabling ready installation and removal. One or more data acquiring sensors or data transferring apparatus and support equipment such as batteries and communications and power cables are contained within the module. A plurality of different modules are preferably provided. Each module, when attached in a preferred location below the wing, does not significantly alter the center of gravity of the airframe. Preferably, each module contains the supervisory microprocessor so that the microprocessor need not be part of the airframe.

A miniature, unmanned aircraft for acquiring and / or transmitting data, capable of automatically maintaining desired airframe stability while operating by remote directional commands. The aircraft comprises a fuselage and a wing, a piston engine and propeller, a fuel supply, at least one data sensor and / or radio transceiver, a microprocessor disposed to manage flight, a radio transceiver for receiving remotely generated flight direction commands, a GPS receiver, a plurality of control surfaces and associated servomechanisms, for controlling flight stabilization and direction, roll, pitch, yaw, velocity, and altitude sensors. The microprocessor uses roll, pitch, yaw, and altitude data to control attitude and altitude of the aircraft automatically, but controls flight direction solely based on external commands. The aircraft does not exceed fifty-five pounds.

A UAV arresting hook is disclosed. The arresting hook facilitates the capture of a UAV via a UAV recovery system. In the illustrative embodiment, the arresting hook has a rotation block, an arm, and a plurality of latches that are disposed on the arm. The arm is coupled to the UAV via the rotation block, which provides two rotational degrees of freedom to the arm. In a stowed position, the arm is flush against the surface of the UAV. To deploy the arm, a free end of the arm is rotated away from the surface of the UAV. The arm is additionally biased to rotate about its longitudinal axis as it rotates away from the surface of the UAV. This rotation positions the latches to capture an arresting line that is part of a UAV recovery system.

An improved method and system for the delivery of at least one ordered item to at least one locked storage containers, associated with a corresponding customer comprising, following the ordering of the delivery, determining the availability of the the locked storage container to receive the delivery at one or more times; identifying a time interval during which the delivery can be made to the locked storage container; sending a signal to the locked storage container allowing access by a delivery agent that is delivering the at least one ordered item to the locked storage container only during the time interval, the improvement wherein the delivery agent is an unmanned delivery_aircraft.

A micro unmanned aerial vehicle or drone (“UAV”) 10 is remotely controlled through an HMI, although this remote control is supplemented by and selectively suppressed by an on-board controller. The controller operates to control the generation of a sonar bubble that generally encapsulates the UAV. The sonar bubble, which may be ultrasonic in nature, is produced by a multiplicity of sonar lobes generated by specific sonar emitters associated with each axis of movement for the UAV. The emitters produce individual and beamformed sonar lobes that partially overlap to provide stereo or bioptic data in the form of individual echo responses detected by axis-specific sonar detectors. In this way, the on-board controller is able to interpret and then generate 3-D spatial imaging of the physical environment in which the UAV is currently moving or positioned. The controller is therefore able to plot relative and absolute movement of the UAV through the 3-D space by recording measurements from on-board gyroscopes, magnetometers and accelerometers. Data from the sonar bubble can therefore both proactively prevent collisions with objects by imposing a corrective instruction to rotors and other flight control system and can also assess and compensate for sensor drift.

A micro-unmanned aerial vehicle deployment system is provided for a cruise missile having submunition compartments. The system includes a vehicle launch module releasable from the cruise missile submunition compartment. The vehicle launch system has a control circuit and at least one micro-unmanned aerial vehicle contained therein. Structure is provided in the launch module for deploying the micro-unmanned aerial vehicle. A separable tether can be joined between the cruise missile and the vehicle launch module that separates when subjected to tension after deployment of the vehicle launch module.

A Blended Wing Body SUAV and MUAV is disclosed having a novel airfoil profile, wing configuration, rigging and tractor pull propeller placement that provide improved stability and safety characteristics over prior art SUAVs and MUAVs of comparable size and weight. This unique blended wing design includes wing twist on the outboard wing and an inverted “W” shaped planform to provide lateral and longitudinal stability, and smooth, even flight characteristics throughout the range of the expected flight envelope. These flight characteristics are crucial to providing a stable reconnaissance platform with favorable stall speeds, an increased payload and the ability to hand launch without the danger of exposing ones hands or wrist to a propeller.

A vehicle with wings and a mechanism for causing a flapping motion in wings. Each wing structure comprises a wing and a wing spar coupled to a follower via a resilient member. Each wing carrier is pivotally connected to the body and is configured to restrain lateral movement and permit rotation of the wing spar about a feathering axis. A biasing member provides torsional bias to each wing spar. A linkage, driven by an actuator, transmits cyclic motion that rotates the wing carrier about a flapping axis, which moves the follower along a follower path. A guide attached to the vehicle body lies in the path of each follower, and the follower and guide are shaped such that each wing spar has a first rotational position about its axis along a first portion of the follower path and a second rotational position along a second portion of the follower path.

A deformation structure of an air vehicle. The deformation structure includes: a driving part, a transmission part which is fixedly connected to the driving part, is driven by the driving part, and linearly moves back and forth relative to the driving part, a fixing part which sleeves the transmission part, at least two main rods which are respectively disposed on the two sides of the transmission part, wherein each main rod includes a first bottom part and an opposite first tail part, and the first bottom parts of the at least two main rods are hinged to each other and are limited to one end of the fixing part, wherein the end of the fixing part is in proximity to the driving part, at least two auxiliary rods, wherein each auxiliary rod includes a second bottom part and an opposite second tail part, and the two second bottom parts of the at least two auxiliary rods are hinged to each other and are limited to one end of the fixing part, wherein the end of the fixing part is far away from the driving part, at least two pull rods, wherein one end of each pull rod is connected to the first tail part of one of the main rods and the other end of each pull rod is connected to the second tail part of one of the auxiliary rods, and at least two connecting rods, wherein one end of each connecting rod is hinged to the transmission part and the other end of each connecting rod is hinged to the main rod. The invention also provides a micro air vehicle.

The invention described here offers a more effective method of ornithopter flight control. To accomplish this, the ornithopter has dual microprocessor-controlled drive systems for flapping the wings independently of each other. Various wing movements can cause the ornithopter to turn, roll, or pitch up or down. Weight and complexity are reduced by eliminating the need for servo-controlled tail surfaces.

An apparatus comprising a contactless battery synchronous power and a battery management system (BSP-BMS) is disclosed. This system includes a battery monitoring unit for monitoring the state of the batteries and a synchronous power unit for controlling the intensity and direction of current during both, charging and discharging processes, including one or several opto-inductive discs for the wireless energy transfer and fast and a lightweight communication scheme. The full system disclosed in this invention is very small in size, lightweight, cost effective and reliable due to its scalable structure, easy parallelization of current control elements and paths, and local and reliable opto-inductive coupling. The invention is aimed at universal, fast and automated charge processes and internal stored energy management for unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs) but it can be an effective solution for manned electric vehicles like electric bikes, electric motorcycles or other electric powered vehicles.

The present invention provides safety apparatus for a multi-blade aircraft, comprising an expandable and collapsible parachute assembly having a plurality of inflatable tubes, a plurality of electrically triggered gas generators connected to a support surface of a multi-blade aircraft, and an on-board control unit for initiating triggering of said plurality of gas generators, wherein an outlet end of each of said plurality of gas generators is connected to, and in fluid communication with, a bottom end of one of said plurality of tubes, allowing said parachute assembly to be fully expanded upon generation of inflating gas by each of said plurality of gas generators.

An unmanned aerial surveillance and reconnaissance system are disclosed wherein an unmanned aerial vehicle is launchable from a launch tube, for instance, the bore of an existing weapons system mounted on a mobile vehicle, such as a weapon barrel of a tank or armored combat vehicle and which the launch may be remotely initiated from the protected armored compartment of the mobile vehicle.

A flying wing rotation mechanism of a micro air vehicle is driven under a control of a power module and a detent member. The flying wing rotation mechanism of a micro air vehicle includes a flapping arm and a flying wing. The flapping arm is connected to the detent member, and swings as the power module drives the detent member. An end of the flying wing is pivoted to the flapping arm. When the flapping arm swings, the flying wing swings with the flapping arm in sync. When swing direction of the flapping arm changes, the flying wing rotates relative to an axial direction of the flapping arm.

A UAV arresting hook is disclosed. The arresting hook facilitates the capture of a UAV via a UAV recovery system. In the illustrative embodiment, the arresting hook has a rotation block, an arm, and a plurality of latches that are disposed on the arm. The arm is coupled to the UAV via the rotation block, which provides two rotational degrees of freedom to the arm. In a stowed position, the arm is flush against the surface of the UAV. To deploy the arm, a free end of the arm is rotated away from the surface of the UAV. The arm is additionally biased to rotate about its longitudinal axis as it rotates away from the surface of the UAV. This rotation positions the latches to capture an arresting line that is part of a UAV recovery system.

A method of controlling wing position and velocity for a flapping wing air vehicle provides six-degrees-of-freedom movement for the aircraft through a split-cycle constant-period frequency modulation with wing bias method that generates time-varying upstroke and downstroke wing position commands for wing planforms to produce nonharmonic wing flapping trajectories that generate non-zero, cycle averaged wing drag and alter the location of the cycle-averaged center of pressure of the wings relative to the center of gravity of the aircraft to cause horizontal translation forces, rolling moments and pitching moments of the aircraft.

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is provided with a plurality of synthetic jet actuators and a nonlinear robust controller. The controller compensates for uncertainty in a mathematic model that describes the function of the synthetic jet actuators. Compensation is provided by the use of constant feedforward best guess estimates that eliminate the need for more highly computationally burdensome approaches such as the use of time-varying adaptive parameter estimation algorithms.

A ground vehicle and a method for articulating a payload module for mobility assist are disclosed. The ground vehicle comprises a chassis; and a payload module capable of articulating relative to the chassis to assist the mobility of the ground vehicle. The method comprises articulating a payload module relative to a chassis.

An improved drone with 4 flat wings reciprocating up and down, complete with motor and electronics. Appendages on each wing's surface allow air to pass across it during the up-motion, and block it in the down-motion; this creates lift and permits flight and manoeuvres. The drone resembles either a flying bird or an insect, depending on wing motion and on passive attachments appropriate for the respective resemblance, making for inconspicuousness. The drone can execute complex work, either as solitary or in a team, either in flight or at rest in various places, after approaching and adhering expertly.

A microscale radio-controlled aerial micro-drone vehicle, having a fixed wing (as opposed to a rotary wing) having a propulsion device the vehicle including wheels for traveling on the ground, which are attached to the side ends of a section of the wing. The rotational axis Y1 of the wheels being located in front of the center of gravity of the micro-drone, the center of gravity of the micro-drone being located in front of the aerodynamic center of the micro-drone. The rotational axis Y1 of the wheels being aligned with the thrust axis of the propulsion device and the wheels are sized such that the radius D / 2 thereof is greater than the distance between the rotational axis Y1 of the wheels and the trailing edge of the wing.

A micro aviation vehicle is provided which includes a body, a first wing set, a second wing set, an actuator and a power module. The first wing set and the second wing set are disposed on the left and right sides of the body respectively, and are connected with one end of the actuator. A first angle controller and a second angle controller are used to control the swing angle of the first wing set and the swing angle of the second wing set, respectively. The power module draws the actuator through the rotation of a driving gear, and then the first wing set together with the second wing set are associated with the actuator to flap back-and-forth.