A seismic weight dropper arrangement for a drone. The arrangement comprises a winch assembly attachable to a drone and comprising an actuator and spool with a cable windable thereon. Arrangement also includes a seismic source assembly comprising a housing and a mass suspended within the housing via at least one resiliently elastic biasing element, such as a coil spring. The seismic source assembly is fast with the cable and the actuator configured selectively to eject the seismic source assembly from the drone under the influence of gravity. The resiliently elastic biasing element has a predetermined modulus of elasticity to facilitate the mass impacting the housing when the housing impacts a surface after such ejection from a predetermined height above the surface.

A damage identification (DI) system is described for identifying property damage. The DI system includes a drone fleet having a plurality of drones configured to collect damage data, and a DI computing device. The DI computing device is configured to assign each drone to a respective subarea of a geographical region, where each drone is configured to navigate to the assigned subarea to detect damage to properties. The DI computing device is further configured to receive initial sensor data associated with a first property from a first drone of the plurality of drones, determine the first property is damaged based on the initial sensor data wherein the drone fleet navigates to the first property in response to the determination, receive drone-collected damage data associated with the first property from the drone fleet, and generate aggregated damage data associated with the first property based upon the drone-collected damage data.

Disclosed herein is a method for determining if icing has occurred on a surface of an aircraft, the method comprising: heating a surface of an air craft, after the heating has stopped, measuring the temperature of the surface as it cools, and determining if icing has occurred on the surface in dependence on the measured temperature. Advantageously, embodiments provide improved techniques for the detection of icing and the prevention, or mitigation, of icing when it has formed. Embodiments are particularly advantageous when implemented on small UAVs in civilian applications for which autonomous and energy efficient operation is particularly important.

A method and system for controlling access to restricted sectors in airspace is disclosed. The method includes creating a multi-dimensional map of airspace, overlaying a sector having boundaries onto the map, wherein the sector contains a restricted flight zone and a buffer zone monitoring the flight of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), sending a command to the UAV if the UAV enters the buffer zone; and generating a response if the UAV does not leave the sector based on the command.

The embodiments of the present disclosure disclose a drone-based cleaning method and system, wherein the method includes: flying to a designated position of an object to be cleaned when the drone receives a cleaning instruction for cleaning the object to be cleaned, determining a cleaning area corresponding to the designated position on the outer surface of the object to be cleaned, obtaining environmental information of the cleaning area, controlling the cleaning device of the drone being flipped from below to a position parallel to the outer surface according to the environmental information, and controlling the cleaning device to clean the cleaning area, so that the drone can be more intelligently controlled for cleaning, making it safer to clean the exterior walls of objects.

Various techniques are described utilizing one or more unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or “drones”) for various disaster and/or catastrophe-related purposes. UAVs may collect data in an attempt to predict the occurrence and/or extent of a catastrophe and/or to mitigate the impact of a catastrophe before and, if not at that time, once it has occurred. The UAVs may perform various tasks such that the damage to property caused by a catastrophe (or potential catastrophe) may be eliminated or mitigated. The drone data may be transmitted by the UAVs to an external computing device, which may be associated with an insurer and used, with an insured's permission, to begin and/or facilitate an insurance claim process or other various insurance-related tasks. Damage to insured property may be estimated from the drone data, and proposed or estimated insurance claims may be generated for customer review, modification, or approval.

A payload coupling apparatus is provided that includes a housing. The housing is adapted for attachment to a first end of a tether. The apparatus further includes a slot extending downwardly from an outer surface of the housing towards a center of the housing thereby forming a lower lip on the housing beneath the slot. The slot is adapted to receive a handle of a payload. The apparatus further includes a sensor configured to detect touchdown of the payload and a transmitter configured to send a touchdown confirmation signal to an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based on a touchdown detection by the sensor.

An aeronautical apparatus is disclosed that has two pairs of wings. Each wing has a thrust-angle motor. A propeller and propeller motor are coupled to each thrust-angle motor. Propeller pitch is controlled by a propeller-pitch motor. The thrust-angle motor allows the propeller axis of rotation to be parallel to the fuselage's longitudinal axis; vertical (perpendicular to longitudinal axis, as in well-known fixed-position, four-propeller drones); and any position between as well as a given range exceeding these bounds which is used for control. An electronic control unit is electronically coupled to the thrust-angle motors, propeller motors, and propeller-pitch motors, which can be independently controlled, to provide the desired thrust and trajectory. Such an apparatus can provide efficient operation in vertical take-off/landing (hovering) and forward (translational) flight modes. Control surfaces, such as ailerons, which are provided on airplanes, are unnecessary due to the many degrees of freedom in control.

A module upgrade method and a module to be upgraded in an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system are disclosed in embodiments of the present invention. The method includes: acquiring an upgrade file of the module to be upgraded; upgrading the module to be upgraded according to the upgrade file; judging whether the module to be upgraded is successfully upgraded; and if no, reacquiring an upgrade file of the module to be upgraded, and upgrading the module to be upgraded according to the re-acquired upgrade file until finishing upgrading the module to be upgraded. In this way, the upgrade success rate of the module to be upgraded can be improved by multiple upgrades, and the upgrade method is simple, convenient, easy to implement and high in reliability.

A method for controlling image capture includes: receiving, from a movable device, an image of a target imaging area; adjusting, by a first control apparatus, one or more first imaging parameters for imaging the target imaging area based at least in part on the image to obtain one or more first adjusted imaging parameters; adjusting, by operating on an interactive interface of a second control apparatus, one or more second imaging parameters for imaging the target imaging area based at least in part on the image to obtain one or more second adjusted imaging parameters, the interactive interface being configured to receive user interaction to control an attitude of a gimbal device configured on the movable device, the gimbal device carrying an imaging device for imaging the targeted area; and sending, by the first control apparatus and/or the second control apparatus, an instruction carrying the one or more first adjusted imaging parameters and the one or more second adjusted imaging parameters to the movable device.