Presented are a method, apparatus, and computer-readable medium for gathering information. An exemplary apparatus includes at least one processor and a memory storing computer instructions executable by the at least one processor, wherein the memory with the computer instructions and the at least one processor are configured to cause the apparatus to at least receive a flight path from a predetermined location to a location of an emergency. The apparatus is further caused to travel the flight path from the predetermined location to the location of the emergency, capture information at the location of the emergency, and transmit the captured information.

An air traffic control system in which several tactical sectors each control of a respective tactical controller can be amalgamated into a single super-sector under control of a single planning controller. The tactical controllers can collaboratively manage flights in neighboring tactical sectors within the same planning sector and have awareness of selected flights and interactions outside their own tactical sector; the invention assesses and selects which flights to display for each controller (based upon separation responsibility).

A system and method for management of airspace for unmanned aircraft is disclosed. The system and method comprises administration of the airspace including designation of flyways and zones with reference to features in the region. The system and method comprises administration of aircraft including registration of aircraft and mission. A monitoring system tracks conditions and aircraft traffic in the airspace. Aircraft may be configured to transact with the management system including to obtain rights/priority by license and to operate in the airspace under direction of the system. The system and aircraft may be configured for dynamic transactions (e.g. licensing/routing). The system will set rates for licenses and use/access to the airspace and aircraft will be billed/pay for use/access of the airspace at rates using data from data sources.

A system for providing integrated detection and countermeasures against unmanned aerial vehicles include a detecting element, a location determining element and an interdiction element. The detecting element detects an unmanned aerial vehicle in flight in the region of, or approaching, a property, place, event or very important person. The location determining element determines the exact location of the unmanned aerial vehicle. The interdiction element can either direct the unmanned aerial vehicle away from the property, place, event or very important person in a non-destructive manner, or can cause disable the unmanned aerial vehicle in a destructive manner.

Systems and methods of precision landing in adverse conditions are provided. In one embodiment, a precision landing system comprises a vehicle including: a receiver configured to receive position information for structures and a landing zone of a landing site and a processor coupled to a memory, the memory includes three-dimensional geometric structural information for a landing site. The processor configured to: receive the position information from the receiver; assign geographical coordinates to the three-dimensional geometric structural information using the position information for the structures and the landing zone of the landing site; send the three-dimensional geometric structural information and graphical rendering information to a display device. The vehicle further includes a display device, wherein the display device is configured to render and display a three-dimensional representation of the landing site in real-time based on the three-dimension geometric structural information and the graphical rendering information from the processor.

Visual landing aids including a series of contrasting circles and polygons for unmanned aerial vehicles that are capable of being accurately detected over a wide range of angles and distances by an unmanned aerial vehicle equipped with a camera and shape detection capabilities. The visual landing said may be implemented using contrasting colors for the pattern which reflect visible and/or UV or infrared light, or by light emitting elements. In some examples, the landing aids includes a secondary smaller version of the landing aid shape pattern that is embedded within the larger pattern, to enable greater detection range while facilitating close-in precision guidance. In still further examples, light emitting elements may be pulsed at a rate that is synchronized with the camera shutter on the unmanned aerial vehicle to further enhance accurate detection.

A method for evaluating an output pattern printed on a medium is described. A reference pattern is stored. The output pattern is printed on the medium based correspondingly on the stored reference pattern. A scan based instance of the output pattern is rendered, which has a set of features at least corresponding to the printed output pattern and zero or more features additional thereto. A difference image, having the zero or more features of the rendered scan instance, is computed based on a comparison of the rendered scan instance to the stored reference pattern. Upon the zero or more features including at least one feature, the computed difference image is evaluated in relation to a proximity of at least one feature to locations pixels of the reference pattern.

Systems and methods of the present invention are provided to generate a plurality of flight trajectories that do not conflict with other aircraft in a local area. Interventions by an air traffic control system help prevent collisions between aircraft, but these interventions can also cause an aircraft to substantially deviate from the pilot's intended flight trajectory, which burns fuels, wastes time, etc. Systems and methods of the present invention can assign a standard avoidance interval to other aircraft in the area such that a pilot's aircraft does not receive an intervention by an air traffic control system. Systems and methods of the present invention also generate a plurality of conflict-free flight trajectories such that a pilot or an automated system may select the most desirable flight trajectory for fuel efficiency, speed, and other operational considerations, etc.

A method of evaluating pilot performance receives and processes avionics data at a database system. The database system computes component scores for the pilot based on the avionics data. Each component score represents a performance grade for a pilot-controlled operation of the aircraft. The database system saves the component scores in association with a pilot performance record for the pilot, and calculates an overall score based on the component scores. The overall score represents a flight performance grade for the pilot. The database system saves the overall score in association with the pilot performance record, and generates a report derived from the component scores and the overall score. A graphical representation of the report is communicated to an electronic device.

Systems and methods of crowd sourcing data are provided. In one embodiment, a method of crowd sourcing data comprises: receiving data region boundary information from an aggregation system, the data region boundary information defines boundaries of data regions; determining membership in a data group for a vehicle based on position of the vehicle within a region; determining whether another member of the data group has been selected as data source; determining whether the vehicle can provide information to the data aggregation system; broadcasting a self-nomination message for the information to members of the data group, wherein the self-nomination message self-selects the vehicle as data source for the information; wherein the self-nomination message identifies the type of information; and transmitting the information from the data source to the data aggregation system via a communication link, wherein only the data source transmits the information to the data aggregation system for the data group.