A ducted fan unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) docking station is provided. The docking station comprises: a guide sized to receive a ducted fan UAV; and a housing communicatively coupled to the guide. The housing comprises: a storage assembly comprising: at least one compartment sized to store the UAV; and at least one dampening system coupled to the at least one storage compartment for cushioning the UAV.

Systems, methods, and apparatuses described herein relate to a method for delivering cash by an unmanned vehicle to a plurality of customers at different locations. The method includes receiving cash delivery requests from user devices of the plurality of customers via a communications network. The method includes determining a path for the unmanned vehicle from a current location of the unmanned vehicle to Global Position System (GPS) locations of the user devices of the plurality of customers. The method also includes instructing each of the plurality of compartments of a cash container of the unmanned vehicle to open in response to authenticating a corresponding customer of the plurality of customers or a corresponding user device of the user devices that generated a corresponding cash delivery request for which each of the plurality of compartments is storing cash.

The present invention discloses a drone, comprising a cyclical hull with one or more cyclical rings, an external structure, and a piezoelectric system. The external structure comprises a fixed wing and a rotary turbine construction. The external structure is securely and rotationally connected to the cyclic ring. The external structure is configured to rotate exponentially around the cyclical hull, thereby enabling a stabilization capability of the drone to forward in the desired direction. The piezoelectric system is mounted on the cyclical hull for efficiently analyzing onward wind direction, thereby effectively rotating the external structure at high speeds to enable the structural integrity of the drone. The drone further comprises one or more locking systems to unlock the cyclical rotational turbine based on an alert received from the piezoelectric system. Further, the drone comprises a camera for capturing a surrounding view of the drone.

An aircraft includes a fuselage airframe and a wing airframe that is subject to flight loads. The fuselage airframe includes fore/aft floor beams having a plurality of floor intercostals laterally extending therebetween and fore/aft roof beams with a plurality of roof intercostals laterally extending therebetween. Each of a plurality of cabin frames extends generally vertically between respective floor and roof beams. The wing airframe includes forward and aft wing spars with a plurality of wing ribs extending therebetween. At least one fuel tank, that is configured to contain a pressurized fuel such as pressurized hydrogen fuel, integrally forms at least a portion of one of the beams, the intercostals, the frames, the spars and/or the ribs such that the fuel tank is subject to the flight loads.

An apparatus for air dropping equipment and supplies from an aircraft is disclosed herein. The apparatus includes a canister having a rotor system configured to slow the descent at a predetermined altitude to a desired landing speed via auto-rotation and/or with motor assist. The rotor system is configured to prevent the container from spinning about its longitudinal axis during the descent.

The present disclosure describes systems and methods for escorting small unmanned aircraft (herein drones). An escorting drone approaches the escorted drone and transmits to it an escort signal. In an embodiment, the escort signal is a GNSS signal fashioned to be the same as the GNSS signal that would be received by the escorted drone, other than being slightly stronger in signal strength and having slightly altered component delays. In another embodiment, the escort signal is a radio frequency control channel signal. Escorting may be utilized to guide a drone from a preprogrammed point to a docking zone in a droneport; to guide a drone though an urban canyon or inside a building where GNSS signals are not reliably received; to retrieve a drone with which communications has been lost; or to escort a drone to safety out of a no-flight zone such as around an airport.

Proposed is a method of determining a location for swarm flight using UWB, the method including: computing a reference location from GPS information in a case where the location is measured; sending out a pulling signal, preset according to a two-way ranging format, according to slave ranging scheduling corresponding to each formation, and receiving a pushing signal from a neighboring flight vehicle and performing ranging; computing a relative location in the formation on a master-slave basis from a ranged pull-push relationship using TWR time information, and computing the relative location in the formation on a slave-slave basis using a received signal strength indicator and time of arrival; generating a fingerprint map in a manner that varies with each formation, using all the computed relative locations in the formation on the master-slave basis; and computing the location of the swarm flight vehicle using the generated fingerprint map.

Drone-based vehicle connectivity systems and methods are disclosed herein. A method can include determining a loss of network connectivity by any of a vehicle and/or a drone associated with the vehicle, receiving an emergency message from the vehicle, launching the drone to navigate to a location where network connectivity exists, and transmitting the emergency message to a service provider when a connection to a network is established.

Systems and methods for vehicle registration are disclosed. A server computer and at least one database are constructed and configured for network communication with at least one vehicle. The at least one vehicle transmits a registration request to the server computer. The server computer assigns a unique registration ID for the at least one vehicle. The at least one database comprises a geofence database storing information of a multiplicity of registered geofences. Each of the multiplicity of registered geofences comprises a plurality of geographic designators defined by a plurality of unique Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) addresses. One of the plurality of unique IPv6 addresses is encoded as a unique identifier for each of the multiplicity of registered geofences. The server computer caches the information of the multiplicity of registered geofences on the at least one vehicle.

An automated modular vehicle configuration system and method that comprises a Configuration Management Unit in the vehicle that detects assemblies attached to the vehicle and configures the vehicle's autopilot based on the detected assemblies. Each attached assembly comprises mechanical and electrical components, ports and a memory device that contains identification information and data related to the assembly, such as assembly type, propulsion type, position, flight time, manufacturing date. Users can swap assemblies on the vehicle in order to provide different features to the vehicle. In particular this invention relates to drone vehicles that can be configured with different types of propulsion systems with different performance profiles and equipment such as gimbals, cameras, landing gear, measurement payloads and such. The invention also automatically downloads vehicle configuration parameters and autopilot firmware updates. Vehicle configuration and logs can be sent to the cloud for safekeeping and further analysis.