A method of aligning an aircraft with a landing platform in motion comprises measuring a GPS heading with at least one GPS sensor positioned at a known location relative to the landing platform while the landing platform is in motion, measuring an orientation of the aircraft with an orientation sensor fixed relative to the aircraft, calculating an orientation of the landing platform from the GPS heading, calculating an orientation offset between the measured orientation of the aircraft and the calculated orientation of the landing platform, and changing an orientation of the aircraft or the landing platform to reduce the orientation offset. A system for landing and securing an aircraft in an enclosure, a system for disconnecting a tether from an aircraft, and a system for landing an aircraft in an enclosure are also described.

Systems, devices, and methods for presenting information in the sky using drones are disclosed. The presentation of information includes navigating one or more drones to locations in the sky where the locations are associated with an image, emitting light signals at the locations, capturing the light signals with a user device, processing the captured signals to identify the image, capturing a background image including at least one of the locations associated with the image, and presenting simultaneously, on the user device, the identified image and the background image.

A flight aiding method for an unmanned aerial vehicle includes receiving a receiving, from a mobile terminal that controls the unmanned aerial vehicle, a flight aiding instruction to execute a flight aiding function. The flight aiding method further includes in response to receiving the flight aiding instruction, controlling, regardless of a head direction that a head of the unmanned aerial vehicle is pointing, the unmanned aerial vehicle to fly by controlling both a velocity of the unmanned aerial vehicle along a reference direction and a velocity of the unmanned aerial vehicle perpendicular to the reference direction. The reference direction is defined for the unmanned aerial vehicle based on a position of a point of interest and a current location of the unmanned aerial vehicle.

Embodiments of the present disclosure may include a method to augment pilot control of a drone, the method including receiving a planned flight route. Embodiments may also include receiving sensor information from an at least one environment sensor along the planned flight route. In some embodiments, the at least one environment sensor may be located at a predefined location. Embodiments may also include estimating a drone location from the sensor information. Embodiments may also include receiving a speed vector of the drone. Embodiments may also include comparing the drone location to an expected drone location along the planned flight route. Embodiments may also include deriving a flight control command and a speed vector command to return the drone to a point along the planned flight route.

An intelligent rescue method applied to a vehicle-mounted device and an airborne rescue device to enable semi-automatic warning and rescue of a broken-down, crashed, drowned, or stranded vehicle, enables communication between the vehicle-mounted device and the rescue device. The vehicle-mounted device determines by sensors a type of emergency of a vehicle, and performs a first assistance action and sends the rescue device a distress signal corresponding to the type of the emergency of the vehicle. The rescue device receives the distress signal and takes off from an initial position of the vehicle to a target position in response to the distress signal. Once the rescue device reaches the target position, the rescue device performs a second action for assistance.

A method for controlling an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) includes receiving, by a processor of the UAV, a plurality of images captured by an imaging device coupled to the UAV, identifying, by the processor, a target in at least one image of the plurality of images, determining, by the processor, whether the target is a stationary target or a moving target based on analyzing the plurality of images, and automatically effecting, by the processor, movement of the UAV based on determining the target is the stationary target or the moving target.

An unmanned aerial vehicle is caused to fly by avoiding a no-fly zone, which changes as a moving object moves. Provided is an unmanned aerial vehicle control system, including: moving object position acquisition means for acquiring moving object position information on a current position of a moving object moving above a surface of an earth; zone setting means for setting a no-fly zone in which a flight of an unmanned aerial vehicle is inhibited based on the moving object position information; and flight control means for controlling the flight of the unmanned aerial vehicle so that the unmanned aerial vehicle avoids the no-fly zone set based on the moving object position information.

The present disclosure provides a control method of a UAV, a control device of a UAV, and a computer-readable storage medium, and relates to the technical field of UAVs. The control method of a UAV includes: determining a deviation between a vertical mapping point on the ground and a landing point of the UAV, the deviation comprising a deviation in a horizontal axis direction of a camera coordinate system and a deviation in a vertical axis direction of the camera coordinate system; and generating speed control amounts of the UAV in the horizontal axis direction and the vertical axis direction of the camera coordinate system by a controller, using the deviation in the horizontal axis direction and the deviation in the vertical axis direction.

The present disclosure provides systems and methods for flight planning for an autonomous aerial vehicle. The systems and methods perform a processor executed process of receiving a request for flight planning and retrieving a model for the structure or the feature of interest from one or more databases. The request identifies a structure or a feature of interest to be surveyed by the autonomous aerial vehicle. The one or more databases include a database including models of terrain, airports and obstacles or a database including models of manufactured articles based on original equipment manufacturer (OEM) specifications or computer aided design (CAD) models. The process includes computing a flight plan that completely surveys the structure or completely surveys the feature of interest based on the retrieved model. The flight plan defines a search pattern with position values. The process includes uplinking the flight plan to the autonomous aerial vehicle.

The invention relates to a method of controlling an UAV along a predefined path and to an UAV positioning system, the system comprising: —at least one flexible positioning stripe (30) comprising markers (32) distributed along said positioning stripe (30) to form different configurations of patterns, each of said configurations of patterns defining a reference position along the flexible positioning stripe (30), wherein said positioning stripe (30) may be positioned along a predefined path, —an UAV (12), —a position estimation module (14) mounted on the UAV and comprising a camera (16) configured to capture images in real-time of said configuration of patterns along the flexible positioning stripe (30)—a control unit (20) configured to control the velocity of the UAV. The position estimation module (14) is configured to position the UAV (12) above, below or next to the positioning stripe (30) and along aid positioning stripe (30) based on successive configurations of patterns captured by the camera (16) of the position estimation module (14). The at least one flexible positioning stripe (30) comprises a controller (34) configured to dynamically control active markers (32) based on the velocity of the UAV (12) and the positions of said active markers (32) along the position stripe (30) in order to generate said successive configuration of patterns.