Unmanned Vehicle Head Stabilization via Neck Mechanism
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional unmanned vehicles (UVs) using two-axis forward-mounted gimbals face challenges in maintaining image orientation and accurate sensor readings during vehicle maneuvers, leading to potential flight control system errors due to turbulent airflow affecting sensors like airspeed monitoring systems.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle configuration with a body, neck, and head, where the neck includes a stabilization mechanism responsive to sensors, allowing the head to maintain attitude decoupled from body attitude variations, using transducers and sensors like GPS, vision sensors, and air data sensors to control the neck's movements and maintain stable head orientation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a two-axis forward-mounted gimbal is used to maintain image orientation, then image orientation is maintained, but the physical roll axis increases gimbal size and weight
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the roll stabilization function from the physical gimbal mechanism and relocates it to the image processing domain. Instead of mechanically maintaining the image axis perpendicular to the roll axis through a physical roll axis in the gimbal, the system captures images with the sensor axis perpendicular to the roll axis and then digitally rotates the images in post-processing to achieve the same effect without the mechanical complexity and weight
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical roll axis component of the gimbal system with a computational image rotation process. The mechanical system that would physically orient the sensor is substituted with software-based image rotation algorithms that process captured images to achieve the desired orientation, thereby eliminating the need for the physical roll axis and its associated weight and complexity
2Productivity
If sensors are mounted on the vehicle body to monitor flight characteristics, then flight control data is collected, but turbulent airflow during maneuvers causes inaccurate sensor readings
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the stabilization function into two independent parts: vehicle attitude control (handled by the flight control system using body-mounted sensors) and image orientation maintenance (handled by the digital image rotation system). This segmentation allows the image processing system to compensate for turbulent airflow effects on sensors by independently calculating and applying the necessary rotation based on vehicle attitude changes, thereby maintaining measurement precision despite turbulent conditions
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces digital image rotation as an intermediary process between image capture and final image output. This intermediary step compensates for the effects of turbulent airflow on vehicle-mounted sensors by rotating the captured images according to the calculated vehicle attitude changes, thereby maintaining accurate image orientation even when sensor readings are affected by turbulence
3Measurement precision
If the head is stabilized independently of the body, then accurate sensor readings are maintained during maneuvers, but the stabilization system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces complex mechanical stabilization mechanisms (such as active gimbals or additional stabilization actuators on the head) with a computational approach. The system uses data from body-mounted sensors about vehicle attitude and applies digital image rotation to achieve head stabilization效果, thereby maintaining measurement precision while avoiding the complexity of mechanical stabilization systems on the head itself
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the stabilization function from the physical head assembly and relocates it to the image processing domain. Instead of mechanically stabilizing the head through additional actuators and sensors on the head, the system stabilizes the image output digitally based on vehicle attitude data, thereby maintaining measurement precision while reducing head assembly complexity
Data Source
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AI summary
Embodiments unmanned vehicles in which flight control sensors are carried in a stabilized head of the vehicle. Such stabilized flight control sensors experience less noise or generate less noise as a consequence of vehicle manoeuvring.