Balcony Validation for UAV Delivery in Urban Canyons
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Solution Overview
Problem
In high-density urban spaces, particularly multi-level buildings, it is challenging to identify and allocate the correct delivery destination for UAVs due to the lack of externally distinguishing features on urban apartment residences, and traditional navigation methods like GPS are unreliable for navigating within the 'urban canyon'.
Innovation Solution
A system and method for validating and enrolling balconies into a parcel delivery service using UAVs, which involves a VTOL UAV, a cloud-based backend, and client-side application to identify and confirm the correct balcony through aerial maps, user-provided images, and fiducial markers, ensuring unobstructed paths and sufficient space for safe delivery.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional GPS navigation methods are used, then navigation is simple and straightforward, but GPS is unreliable in urban canyon environments
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces visual landmarks, fiducial markers, and computer vision systems as intermediary elements between the GPS satellite signal and the final navigation solution. These intermediaries provide redundant positioning information that compensates for GPS signal loss in urban canyons, allowing the system to maintain navigation reliability without completely replacing GPS infrastructure.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces reliance on radio frequency-based GPS positioning with optical-based computer vision navigation using cameras and visual feature recognition. This substitution enables the system to navigate by detecting visual landmarks, building features, and fiducial markers, providing reliable positioning where GPS signals are blocked or reflected.
2Adaptability or versatility
If UAVs deliver to tightly situated apartment residences, then delivery coverage is expanded, but identification of correct delivery destination becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-placing fiducial markers on balconies and building exteriors before delivery attempts. These markers are registered in advance with the delivery address database, enabling the UAV to quickly identify the correct destination without needing to analyze complex building geometries or distinguish between similar-looking apartments during the actual delivery operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses visually distinct fiducial markers with specific color patterns, shapes, and optical properties that make them easily detectable by the UAV's computer vision system. These markers create high-contrast visual signatures that differentiate one delivery location from another, solving the problem of identifying correct destinations among tightly situated, similar-looking apartment residences.
3Speed
If UAVs maneuver inside urban canyon, then direct delivery paths are achieved, but navigation becomes challenging due to GPS unreliability
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transitions from two-dimensional GPS coordinate-based navigation to three-dimensional visual navigation by incorporating vertical building features, balcony structures, and multi-level spatial relationships into the navigation system. This dimensional enhancement allows the UAV to navigate complex urban canyons by matching visual features across multiple spatial dimensions, maintaining both speed and reliability.
Data Source
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AI summary
A technique for validating a balcony to receive delivery of a parcel via a UAV includes obtaining a first identification of a general location of the balcony; generating a first image representing a building including the balcony where the first image is selected based upon the location identified; obtaining a second identification or a confirmation of a precise location of the balcony in the building where the second identification or the confirmation are received in response to an end-user interaction with the first image; determining a deliverability score based at least in part on the precise location of the balcony; and indicating an enrollment status to the end-user where the enrollment status is generated based upon the deliverability score.