Many different types of systems are utilized or tasks are performed in a marine environment. The present invention provides various configurations of unmanned vehicles, or drones, that can be operated and/or controlled for such systems or tasks. One or more unmanned vehicles can be integrated with a dedicated marine electronic device of a marine vessel for autonomous control and operation. Additionally or alternatively, the unmanned vehicle can be manually remote operated during use in the marine environment. Such unmanned vehicles can be utilized in many different marine environment systems or tasks, including, for example, navigation, sonar, radar, search and rescue, video streaming, alert functionality, among many others. However, as contemplated by the present invention, the marine environment provides many unique challenges that may be accounted for with operation and control of an unmanned vehicle.

An automated warehousing system for use in a warehouse having a storage racks includes drawers partitioned into multiple compartments to contain different parcels, the drawers being at designated locations of individual cells in the storage racks and adapted to be opened and closed. The system also has a plurality of drones configured to identify a designated one of the drawers at a designated location and a designated one compartment of the designated one drawer. The drones have gripper heads translatable relative to opened drawers to retrieve parcels therefrom. The system further has a communication subsystem communicating with the drones to control their flying and also to control their gripper heads relative to opened drawers and communicating with individual cells for opening and closing drawers as drones approach and depart the selected individual cells.

Methods and systems for autonomous item delivery and/or pick up are provided. IN some aspects, a mothership travels along an item route. One or more autonomous delivery vehicles may be dispatched from the mothership as the mothership progresses along the route. Each of the autonomous delivery vehicles may deliver and/or pick-up one or more items at one or more item locations. In addition, as the mothership progresses along its route, it may also stop to facilitate the manual delivery and/or pick-up of additional items via a human operator. Upon completing their delivery and/or pick up tasks, the autonomous delivery vehicles return to the mothership, either at the point at which they dispatched from the mothership, or at a different location along the item delivery route.

Many different types of systems are utilized or tasks are performed in a marine environment. The present invention provides various configurations of unmanned vehicles, or drones, that can be operated and/or controlled for such systems or tasks. One or more unmanned vehicles can be integrated with a dedicated marine electronic device of a marine vessel for autonomous control and operation. Additionally or alternatively, the unmanned vehicle can be manually remote operated during use in the marine environment. Such unmanned vehicles can be utilized in many different marine environment systems or tasks, including, for example, navigation, sonar, radar, search and rescue, video streaming, alert functionality, among many others. However, as contemplated by the present invention, the marine environment provides many unique challenges that may be accounted for with operation and control of an unmanned vehicle.

Described herein are methods and systems for picking up, transporting, and lowering a payload coupled to a tether of a winch system arranged on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). For example, the winch system may include a motor for winding and unwinding the tether from a spool, and the UAV's control system may operate the motor to lower the tether toward the ground so a payload may be attached to the tether. The control system may monitor an electric current supplied to the motor to determine whether the payload has been attached to the tether. In another example, when lowering a payload, the control system may monitor the motor current to determine that the payload has reached the ground and responsively operate the motor to detach the payload from the tether. The control system may then monitor the motor current to determine whether the payload has detached from the tether.

An automated warehousing system for use in a warehouse having a storage racks includes drawers partitioned into multiple compartments to contain different parcels, the drawers being at designated locations of individual cells in the storage racks and adapted to be opened and closed. The system also has a plurality of drones configured to identify a designated one of the drawers at a designated location and a designated one compartment of the designated one drawer. The drones have gripper heads translatable relative to opened drawers to retrieve parcels therefrom. The system further has a communication subsystem communicating with the drones to control their flying and also to control their gripper heads relative to opened drawers and communicating with individual cells for opening and closing drawers as drones approach and depart the selected individual cells.

This disclosure describes an automated aerial vehicle that includes one or more object detection elements configured to detect the presence of objects and an avoidance determining element configured to cause the automated aerial vehicle to automatically determine and execute an avoidance maneuver to avoid the objects. For example, an object may be detected and an avoidance maneuver determined based on a position of the object and an object vector representative of a direction and a magnitude of velocity of the object.

A technique for a UAV includes: acquiring an aerial image of an area below a UAV that includes one or more instances of an object; analyzing the aerial image with an image classifier to classify select pixels of the aerial image as being keypoint pixels associated with keypoints of the object; grouping the keypoint pixels into one or more groups each associated with one of the instances of the object, wherein first keypoint pixels of the keypoint pixels are grouped into a first group of the one or more groups associated with a first instance of the one or more instances of the object; generating an estimate of a relative position of the UAV to the first instance of the object based at least upon a machine vision analysis of the first keypoint pixels; and navigating the UAV into alignment with the first instance based upon the estimate.

An automated system of airborne drones may be equipped with components for navigating within a warehouse environment, locating specific bins of product as assigned, retrieving a single item from the bin, and delivering the retrieved item to a central shipping area or disposing in a designated location including conveyor belts or mobile robotic platforms.

The present invention has an object of providing an unmanned aircraft system, control device and control method which can more easily anchor a package to a linear member. An unmanned aircraft system (1) of an embodiment of the present invention includes: an unmanned aircraft (2) including a hoisting mechanism capable of feeding out and hoisting a linear member (31); a flight control unit (61) which causes the unmanned aircraft (2) to take off in a state in which a package (T) anchored to the linear member (31) is arranged on a ground surface; and a hoisting control unit (62) which causes the linear member (31) to be hoisted by the hoisting mechanism (3), after the unmanned aircraft (2) has taken off, in a case of a hoisting condition indicating a state enabling hoisting of the linear member (31) being satisfied.