UAV Steering Assist Using Virtual Trajectory Prediction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Piloting unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) requires skilled operation to navigate complex courses while avoiding obstacles, and existing systems lack effective steering assistance to prevent collisions and optimize speed, leading to potential damage and performance loss.
Innovation Solution
A steering assist system that creates a virtual world model of the flight area using physics engines, determines UAV capability parameters, and provides real-time navigation suggestions based on predicted trajectories, allowing for automatic evasive maneuvers to avoid collisions and optimize flight paths.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a pilot manually controls the UAV at high speed, then the drone can maintain momentum during turns, but the pilot may make mistakes leading to collisions and damage
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a virtual world model and physics engine as an intermediary between the pilot and the real UAV. The system simulates the flight environment, predicts trajectories, and provides navigation suggestions that act as a mediator to guide the pilot's decisions, reducing the skill requirement while maintaining high-speed flight safety
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors the UAV's position, velocity, and trajectory in the real world, compares it with the simulated virtual model, and provides real-time feedback through navigation suggestions. This closed-loop feedback mechanism helps pilots make corrective adjustments to avoid collisions and optimize flight paths
2Productivity
If the pilot flies along a specific racing line to optimize speed, then kinetic energy is conserved during turns, but the pilot needs advanced skills to execute the precise flight path
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-calculates optimal racing lines and navigation suggestions by simulating various flight paths in the virtual world model before the actual flight. These pre-computed optimal trajectories are then presented to the pilot as guidance, eliminating the need for the pilot to manually figure out the complex racing line while still achieving optimal race times
3Reliability
If the system provides real-time navigation suggestions and automatic control, then collision risk is reduced, but the system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a virtual copy or replica of the real flight environment and UAV dynamics through a virtual world model. This digital twin allows the system to perform complex simulations, trajectory predictions, and collision assessments in the virtual domain without adding physical complexity to the actual UAV hardware, thereby achieving high reliability with manageable system complexity
Data Source
AI summary
A steering assist system for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) receives physical space data for a flight area, and creates a virtual world model to represent the flight area by mapping the physical space data with a physics engine. The steering assist system creates a virtual UAV model to represent the UAV in the virtual world model. The steering assist system determines capability parameters for the UAV, and receives flight data for the UAV. The steering assist system determines a predicted trajectory for the virtual UAV model within the virtual world model, based on the capability parameters and flight data for the UAV. The steering assist system determines a navigation suggestion for the UAV based on the predicted trajectory and capability parameters for the UAV, and displays the navigation suggestion.