The following relates generally to determining, provisioning, communicating, and implementing flight paths for drones. The flight path may include a cross section that the drone is required to stay within while traveling through the flight path. Some implementations enable the safe and sustainable use of growing volumes of commercial drone traffic by incorporating public policy into a system that protects public health and safety, and facilitates collection of fees.

An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) air traffic control method utilizing wireless networks includes communicating with a plurality of UAVs via a plurality of cell towers associated with the wireless networks, wherein the plurality of UAVs each include hardware and antennas adapted to communicate to the plurality of cell towers, and wherein each of the plurality of UAVs include a unique identifier; maintaining data associated with flight of each of the plurality of UAVs based on the communicating; and processing the maintained data to perform a plurality of function associated with air traffic control of the plurality of UAVs.

A flying lane management method implemented in an air traffic control system communicatively coupled to one or more Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) via one or more wireless networks includes initiating communication to the one or more UAVs at a preflight stage for each, wherein the communication is via one or more cell towers associated with the one or more wireless networks, wherein the plurality of UAVs each comprise hardware and antennas adapted to communicate to the plurality of cell towers; determining a flying lane for the one or more UAVs based on a destination, current air traffic in a region under management of the air traffic control system, and based on detected obstructions in the region; and providing the flying lane to the one or more UAVs are an approval to takeoff and fly along the flying lane.

A compact load cell that simultaneously measures normal and shear forces in a load plane offset from a sensor plane by a distance h. The compact load cell comprises at least three force sensing elements (preferably four) arranged in the sensor plane about a point and spaced a distance d from the point. All force sensing elements may be spaced by the same distance or the distance may be different for one or more force sensing elements. Each force sensing element comprises a pressure sensor encased in a force transmission medium. A load plate is in contact with the force transmission medium and a load beam is connected at one end to the load plate above the point of the sensor plane and extends to the load plane. Forces acting in the load plane are transmitted to the sensor plane by the load beam and load plate. The forces are resolved to determine the normal and shear forces acting at the load plane. The compact load cell may be applied to determine forces acting on, for example, an unmanned aerial vehicle.

Provided is a technique capable of moving a mobile body to an appropriate position and eliminating the mobile body. This mobile body control system is provided with: a false signal generation unit that generates a false signal for calculating a position different from the actual position of the mobile body on the basis of signal code information which the mobile body has received to calculate the position thereof; and a false signal transmission unit that transmits the generated false signal into a prescribed region.

Aerial vehicles may include one or more directional sensors embedded into wings, rudders, ailerons, flaps or other control surfaces. When the aerial vehicles are operating in modes that do not require the use of such surfaces, a surface having a directional sensor embedded therein may be repositioned or reoriented to align the directional sensor toward an area or axis of interest, and information may be gathered from the area or axis of interest using the directional sensor. One or more safety lights, running lights or other illuminators may cast light of a desired color, frequency or wavelength toward the area or axis of interest. The directional sensors may include cameras, radar or laser sensors, or any other reorientable sensors.

In an aspect, a system for a guidance interface for a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft comprises a plurality of flight components that are mechanically coupled to the VTOL aircraft. The VTOL aircraft also comprises an output device that is configured to present a display of the outside environment. The output device may overlay the display with a datum, a focal point, and a guidance symbol. The datum may be associated with the flight components of the VTOL aircraft. The focal point may be indicative of a desired landing location for the VTOL aircraft. The focal point may be determined by at least a predetermined flight plan. The guidance symbol may be a symbol that includes an optimal flight path to the focal point.

An aircraft for unmanned firefighting may include a water tank fillable via a scoop operation during flight of the aircraft, and configured to be emptied by a release operation at a target of interest, a communications module configured to employ wireless communication via a ground link and/or a satellite link to provide real time or near real time communication with a remote configuration or monitoring facility, an imaging module configured to obtain image data at the target of interest for identifying updated target information, and a navigation module configured to enable remote or autonomous operation of the aircraft during the scoop operation and the release operation.

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), a UAV flight control method and device. The method includes: monitoring a current flight state of the UAV; correcting a flight attitude of the UAV to a preset attitude when the current flight state of the UAV is not consistent with a target flight state; and controlling the flight attitude of the UAV to be a natural hovering attitude when the flight attitude of the UAV fails to be corrected to the preset attitude under a first preset condition.

Deployable navigation beacons can be deployed from a vehicle, such as an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), in an event of a loss of position or orientation of the vehicle. After deployment of the navigation beacons, the vehicle may detect locations of the navigation beacon, which may define a surface that may include surface features. The vehicle may then perform control operations based on the resolved locations. For example, UAV may maneuver to land proximate to the navigation beacons after resolving locations of the navigation beacons as a continuous surface. The navigation beacons may output a visual signal (e.g., a light), a auditory signal (e.g., a sound), and/or a radio signal. In some embodiments, each navigation beacon may include a different or unique signal.