Airborne Drone Alerting With Imaging and Hazard Reporting
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Solution Overview
Problem
The proliferation of drones poses a hazard to crewed aircraft due to varying operator skills and regulatory adherence, leading to potential collisions and airspace intrusions, necessitating an alerting and reporting system to identify and document errant drone operations.
Innovation Solution
An airborne system comprising a surveillance, imaging, navigational, and communication subsystem to identify and report drones operating adjacent to the aircraft, capturing images and transmitting aircraft state data to a receiving station.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If drone operations expand in volume and character, then business activities benefit from improved inspection and monitoring capabilities, but the hazard to crewed aircraft increases due to varying operator skills and regulatory adherence
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary alerting system that mediates between drone operators and crewed aircraft pilots. The system detects drone presence and transmits alerts to pilots, creating a communication bridge that reduces direct conflict while maintaining safety. This intermediary layer allows drone operations to expand while mitigating hazards through coordinated awareness.
2Reliability
If more drone operators adhere to regulations, then airspace safety improves, but the complexity of regulatory compliance increases for operators
Solution Approach 1:
The system enables self-service compliance by automatically detecting drone presence and generating regulatory compliance reports. Rather than requiring operators to manually track and report their operations, the system autonomously monitors airspace, identifies drone activities, and generates compliance documentation, reducing the operational burden on pilots while maintaining regulatory adherence.
3Reliability
If an alerting system is implemented to identify hazardous drones, then collision avoidance capability improves, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The alerting system is designed with multi-functionality, serving multiple purposes: detecting drone presence, determining hazard levels, generating compliance reports, and alerting pilots. By consolidating these functions into a single integrated system rather than separate components, the patent reduces overall system complexity while maintaining comprehensive collision avoidance capability.
4Speed
If real-time drone detection is performed, then response time for collision avoidance improves, but energy consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system employs periodic detection cycles rather than continuous monitoring, analyzing airspace at predetermined intervals and only activating full imaging and reporting sequences when drones are detected. This periodic action maintains rapid response capability while significantly reducing energy consumption compared to continuous real-time analysis of all airspace conditions.
Data Source
AI summary
A system to alert airborne crewed aircraft of an airborne drone. In one aspect, the airborne drone broadcasts drone data, such as drone position data and drone identification data, to a communication station or to the airborne crewed aircraft, enabling an alert to be provided to the airborne crewed aircraft. The alert may be shared among other crewed aircraft or other drones approaching the airspace of the identified drone.