A hybrid VTOL vehicle having an envelope configured to provide hydrostatic buoyancy, a fuselage attached to the envelope and having at least one pair of wings extending from opposing sides thereof to produce dynamic lift through movement, and a thrust generation device on each wing and configured to rotate with each wing about an axis that is lateral to a longitudinal axis of the envelope to provide vertical takeoff or landing capabilities. Ideally, the envelope provides negative hydrostatic lift to enhance low-speed and on-the-ground stability.

The invention discloses a waitressing drone that brings drinks to people at the restaurant, and the orders are identified from the Facebook photo of the user, that the drone displays when making the delivery. The invention facilitates the interaction with humans and drones via the social network. With the invention, the order input time is greatly reduced for the consumer, and the consumer may move about while waiting for the order as the drone finds the consumer. Also importantly, the social nature of the drone allows for the sharing of drones among multiple human users. Further, the interfacing of the social human profile with non-human drone profiles allows for the continuous retraining and reprogramming of drones to meet more specific and individualistic user tasks, thereby liberating people from mundane manual labour.

The invention discloses a waitressing drone that brings drinks to people at the restaurant, and the orders are identified from the Facebook photo of the user, that the drone displays when making the delivery. The invention facilitates the interaction with humans and drones via the social network. With the invention, the order input time is greatly reduced for the consumer, and the consumer may move about while waiting for the order as the drone finds the consumer. Also importantly, the social nature of the drone allows for the sharing of drones among multiple human users. Further, the interfacing of the social human profile with non-human drone profiles allows for the continuous retraining and reprogramming of drones to meet more specific and individualistic user tasks, thereby liberating people from mundane manual labour.

A system and method for enabling a user of a mobile communications device to select or input a second taxi-start location parameter for a substantially autonomous vehicle to navigate to within a pre-determined period of time and wherein the successful registering and processing of the second taxi-start location parameter overrides a previously user-inputted first taxi-start location parameter. The system and method includes executing a first set of programmatic instructions wherein the user can, via a coupled user-interface device, select or input a second taxi-start location parameter, and wherein the user-supplied input comprises a second taxi-start location parameter for a substantially autonomous vehicle to navigate to that is separated by a distance from a previously user-inputted first taxi-start location parameter, and wherein the distance separation is between and inclusive of 12 meters and 4502 meters. The first set of programmatic instructions is further operable to register and process the second taxi-start location parameter generated between 6 seconds and 5581.2 seconds after the generation and processing of the first taxi-start location parameter.

In some examples, a landing location within a region for an unmanned aerial vehicle may be determined. The landing location may be determined based on a first digital elevation dataset, a second digital elevation dataset, and parcel data corresponding to a region. The landing location may be determined by identifying open areas within the parcel data and performing one or more slope calculations and one or more area calculations on the open areas.

A multi-rotor passenger-carrying aircraft is disclosed, including an aircraft body with a passenger-carrying cabin and at least three aircraft arms arranged on the aircraft body. Each of the at least three aircraft arms is provided with a first propeller arranged above the aircraft arm and driven to rotate by a first driving device, and a second propeller arranged below the aircraft arm and driven to rotate by a second driving device. The aircraft can effectively reduce the area it occupies and meet the requirement of carrying capacity by arranging propellers of smaller size both above and below each aircraft arm instead of separately arranging a propeller of larger size on each aircraft arm in traditional means. Meanwhile, the multi-rotor passenger-carrying aircraft can implement various flight actions during flight by adjusting the rotate speed of the different driving devices respectively, which is convenient to control, with good maneuverability and controllability.

A multi-rotor passenger-carrying aircraft with foldable aircraft arm is disclosed, including an aircraft body, a fixing mechanism, a connector and an aircraft arm. The fixing mechanism is fastened on the aircraft body, an end of the aircraft arm is articulated to the fixing mechanism, the fixing mechanism is provided with at least one first mounting hole, and the aircraft arm is provided with at least one second mounting hole. When the aircraft arm is in a folded state, one end of the connector is removably attached to the fixing mechanism through a first fastener, and the other end of the connector is removably attached to the aircraft arm through a second fastener, so that the fixing mechanism is kept to be at a first angle with the aircraft arm. When the aircraft arm is in a working state, a third fastener is adapted to pass through both the first and second mounting holes to cause the fixing mechanism to be fixedly connected to the aircraft arm and kept at a second angle with the aircraft arm. The above multi-rotor passenger-carrying aircraft with foldable aircraft arm can change the angle between the aircraft arm and the fixing mechanism to achieve switching of the aircraft arm between the folded state and the working state, which is convenient for transportation and storage.

A method for retrieving personnel is provided. The method includes receiving a radio signal indicating a real-time position of personnel to be retrieved, deploying an unmanned aerial vehicle to the real-time position, receiving an indication that the personnel to be retrieved is on-board the unmanned aerial vehicle, and operating the unmanned aerial vehicle to move the personnel to a different location.

Provided are a drone taxi system based on multi-agent reinforcement learning and a drone taxi operation method using the same. The drone taxi system includes a plurality of drone taxies configured to receive call information including departure point information and destination information from passenger terminals present within a certain range and a control server configured to receive call information of passengers from each drone taxi, select a candidate passenger depending on whether a passenger is present, generate travel route information of each drone taxi from drone state information of the plurality of drone taxies through multi-agent reinforcement learning, and transmit the travel route information to the drone taxi.

A propulsor brake lock system includes an aircraft propulsor, a reduction gear assembly, a brake shaft, and a brake assembly. The aircraft propulsor includes a propeller having a propeller input shaft coupled thereto. The reduction gear assembly includes at least an input gear and an output gear. The input gear and output gear are both rotatable with the propeller input shaft. The brake shaft is coupled to, and is rotatable with, the output gear. The brake assembly is coupled to the brake shaft and is moveable between a disengaged position, in which the brake shaft may rotate whenever the output gear rotates, and an engaged position, in which the brake shaft is prevented from rotating, thereby preventing rotation of the output gear, the input gear, and the propeller input shaft.