UAV Geo-Fence Approval Control for Restricted Flight and Shooting

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Solution Overview

Problem

The increasing use of drones poses challenges in managing flight safety and privacy, particularly around key facilities, due to the higher accident probability compared to manned aircraft, necessitating advanced autonomous control and restricted area management technologies.

Innovation Solution

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system that includes a geo-fence area information storage, a controller to manage flight and shooting modes based on approval information, and encryption mechanisms to secure data transmission, ensuring safe operations and privacy protection by prohibiting unauthorized flights and image capture within restricted areas.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Ease of operation

If drones are allowed to fly freely in licensed regions, then operational flexibility and ease of operation are improved, but safety risks and privacy invasion risks increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveoperational flexibilityVSAvoidsafety risk
Core Design Contradiction:
Ease of operationVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements pre-flight approval mechanisms where drones must obtain authorization before entering restricted areas. The system pre-identifies geo-fenced zones and requires advance permission requests, preventing unauthorized flights before they occur. This preliminary control layer maintains operational flexibility for authorized flights while blocking unsafe ones in advance.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces an intermediary approval system that acts as a mediator between the drone operator and restricted areas. This intermediary layer verifies flight requests against safety criteria, privacy protection rules, and regulatory requirements before granting access to geo-fenced zones, thus resolving the conflict between operational freedom and safety constraints.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Reliability

If autonomous control technology is implemented, then accident reduction and safety are improved, but device complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveaccident reductionVSAvoidcontrol system complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments autonomous control functions into modular components: geo-fence management module, approval request module, encryption module, and flight control module. Each module handles specific safety tasks independently, making the complex autonomous system more manageable and maintainable while achieving comprehensive safety monitoring and accident prevention.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent implements self-service autonomous control where the drone automatically monitors its own position, evaluates flight safety, and makes control decisions without constant human intervention. The system self-manages approval requests, automatically adjusts flight paths to avoid restricted zones, and encrypts transmitted data, reducing operational complexity over time as the system learns and adapts.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

3Object-affected harmful factors

If encryption mechanisms are added to secure data transmission, then privacy protection is improved, but device complexity and processing overhead increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveprivacy protectionVSAvoidprocessing overhead
Core Design Contradiction:
Object-affected harmful factorsVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent extracts encryption and decryption operations from the main flight control processing path, handling data security separately from flight management. This separation allows encryption to occur in dedicated security modules without interfering with real-time flight control operations, minimizing processing overhead while maintaining strong privacy protection for transmitted data.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Data Source

PatentUS11130571B2Unmanned aerial vehicle including flight and photographing control device
Publication Date: 2021.09.28 4DREAM
  • US11130571B2 patent drawing
  • US11130571B2 patent drawing
  • US11130571B2 patent drawing

AI summary

An unmanned aerial vehicle according to an embodiment of the present disclosure includes a storing part configured to store information regarding a geo-fence area, and flight approval information or shooting approval information of a main body of the unmanned aerial vehicle with respect to the geo-fence area; and a controller configured to, when the main body approaches the geo-fence area, extract approval code from the flight approval information or the shooting approval information, and release at least one of a flight mode and a shooting mode prohibited in the geo-fence area.