Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a storage device, for using a drone to pre-surveil a portion of a property. In one aspect, a system may include a monitoring unit. The monitoring unit may include a network interface, a processor, and a storage device that includes instructions to cause the processor to perform operations. The operations may include obtaining data that is indicative of one or more acts of an occupant of the property, applying the obtained data that is indicative of one or more acts of the occupant of the property to a pre-surveillance rule, determining that the pre-surveillance rule is satisfied, determining a drone navigation path that is associated with the pre-surveillance rule, transmitting, to a drone, an instruction to perform pre-surveillance of the portion of the one or more properties using the drone navigation path.

A flight planning system for providing a flight planning tool comprises a memory device for storing flight information and one or more hardware processors configured to: receive a flight plan, access a calendar of events, determine events corresponding to dates associated with the flight plan, and provide a notification of the events on an interactive user interface.

A flight task processing method includes generating and displaying a user prompt according to flight data of a plurality of flight tasks, selecting one of the flight tasks as a target flight task in response to a selection operation with respect to the user prompt, determining the flight data of the target flight task, processing the flight data of the target flight task to obtain control instruction, and automatically controlling an operation of an aerial vehicle according to the control instruction to reproduce the target flight task by controlling the aerial vehicle to fly to a waypoint included in the flight data, controlling a gimbal of the aerial vehicle to face a gimbal orientation included in the flight data while the aerial vehicle is at the waypoint, and controlling a camera carried by the gimbal to acquire an image while the aerial vehicle is at the waypoint.

A method of targeting, which involves capturing a first video of a scene about a potential targeting coordinate by a first video sensor on a first aircraft; transmitting the first video and associated potential targeting coordinate by the first aircraft; receiving the first video on a first display in communication with a processor, the processor also receiving the potential targeting coordinate; selecting the potential targeting coordinate to be an actual targeting coordinate for a second aircraft in response to viewing the first video on the first display; and guiding a second aircraft toward the actual targeting coordinate; where positive identification of a target corresponding to the actual targeting coordinate is maintained from selection of the actual targeting coordinate.

Flying lane management systems and methods implemented in an air traffic control system communicatively coupled to one or more passenger drones via one or more wireless networks include initiating communication to the one or more passenger drones 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 passenger drones each comprise hardware and antennas adapted to communicate to the plurality of cell towers; determining a flying lane for the one or more passenger drones 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 passenger drones are an approval to takeoff and fly along the flying lane.

There is disclosed in one example an apparatus, including: a hardware platform including a processor and a memory; and instructions encoded within the memory to instruct the processor to: receive stored performance data for an aircraft battery, the stored performance data including data that correlate power density to temperature and remaining charge; simulate a planned flight for an aircraft, including predicting a plurality of temperature and remaining charge values; and direct operation of a heat exchange apparatus to precondition the battery to a selected temperature before the planned flight.

A computer-implemented method is provided for training a supervised machine learning engine able to predict characteristics of aircraft trajectories from parameters of an aircraft, and environment parameters of the aircraft trajectory. A system able to train the supervised machine learning engine, a system for using the engine, and a computer-implemented method for using the engine are provided. The methods and systems provided are particularly useful for air traffic flow management applications.

A computer-implemented method of enabling optimisation of trajectory for a vehicle, the method comprising: determining a trajectory for the vehicle using: an algorithm; a vehicle model defining path constraints for the vehicle through space; a propulsion system model defining parameters of a propulsion system of the vehicle; an objective function defining one or more objectives; and controlling output of the determined trajectory.

A method for supporting aerial operation over a surface includes obtaining a three-dimensional (3D) representation of the surface; converting the 3D representation of the surface to a two-dimensional (2D) representation of the surface; obtaining a 2D flight path of the aircraft based on the 2D representation of the surface; converting the 2D flight path to a 3D flight path including location coordinates; and controlling the aircraft to conduct a flight mission following the 3D flight path.

Methods, systems and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media for generation of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle flight plans based on triggered sensor information. One of the methods includes accessing information correlated from sensors monitoring features of weather events, and determining an upcoming weather event, the determination comprising one or more areas expected to be affected by the weather event. A likelihood of damage associated with the weather event is determined to be greater than a threshold in the areas. The weather event is monitored while areas in which the likelihood is greater than the threshold are updated accordingly. Subsequent to the weather event, properties to be inspected by unmanned aerial vehicles are determined based on severity information associated with the weather event. Job information is generated, the job information being associated with inspecting the determined properties, the job information including jobs each assignable to operators for implementation.