Lenticular Array Visual Guidance for Aircraft Navigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
The increasing use of aircraft and aerial vehicles for tasks like aerial imaging and package delivery poses challenges in automated flight navigation, particularly in urban environments where obstacles like overhead electrical lines and trees complicate landings, and remote manual landings are expensive and require substantial infrastructure.
Innovation Solution
The use of lenticular arrays, which are arrays of lenses displaying different visual identifiers at varying angles, to guide aircraft through automated flight paths by an aircraft control application that processes images from an onboard camera to determine the aircraft's position and adjust its flight accordingly, ensuring it stays within a clear flight corridor.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If automated flight navigation is implemented in urban environments, then productivity and cost-effectiveness are improved, but navigation reliability deteriorates due to obstacles like overhead electrical lines and trees
Solution Approach 1:
A lenticular array is deployed as an intermediary guidance system between the aircraft and the final destination. The array displays different visual identifiers from different angles, serving as a mediator that provides continuous feedback to the aircraft control system about the aircraft's position relative to the safe flight corridor, enabling automated navigation while maintaining safety in obstacle-rich environments
Solution Approach 2:
The lenticular array provides real-time visual feedback to the aircraft control system by displaying different identifiers based on the viewing angle. This feedback mechanism allows the automated flight system to continuously monitor and adjust its position relative to the flight corridor, ensuring safe navigation through complex urban environments with obstacles
2Reliability
If remote manual landings are used, then flight safety is improved, but operational cost increases and infrastructure requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The aircraft is equipped with an onboard camera and control system that autonomously detect lenticular arrays and navigate to the flight corridor without human intervention. The system serves itself by automatically processing visual identifiers from the lenticular array and adjusting the flight path, enabling safe automated landings that eliminate the need for expensive remote piloting services
Solution Approach 2:
The manual remote piloting system is replaced with an automated optical-mechanical system consisting of an onboard camera, image processing unit, and autonomous control algorithm. This substitution uses visual detection and automated decision-making to replace human operators, reducing operational costs while maintaining landing safety
3Measurement precision
If lenticular arrays are deployed to guide aircraft, then navigation precision is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The lenticular array uses different visual identifiers (colors, patterns, textures) visible from different angles to encode positional information. As the aircraft approaches from different directions, the array presents different visual cues that the onboard system detects and uses to determine the aircraft's position relative to the flight corridor, providing high measurement precision through optical variation rather than complex electronic systems
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This solution enables cost-effective, automated flight navigation and landing in complex environments by using lenticular arrays to provide visual cues for the aircraft control system, reducing the need for expensive remote piloting and infrastructure, while ensuring safe and precise flight paths.
Implementation Method 1
lenticular arrays, which are arrays of lenses displaying different visual identifiers at varying angles
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed are various embodiments for flight guidance of an aircraft or other aerial vehicle using one or more lenticular arrays. An aircraft control application may be employed to determine whether a location of an aircraft is within a predefined distance of a lenticular array that defines an optimal flight corridor. If the aircraft is at a location within the predefined distance, the aircraft control application may attempt to visually locate the lenticular array using an imaging device. A position of the aircraft relative to the optimal flight corridor may be determined based at least in part on a visual identifier identified in a digital image of the lenticular array. A flight of the aircraft may be controlled to follow a flight path falling within the optimal flight corridor based at least in part on the visual identifier.