The present disclosure generally pertains to systems and methods for providing position information to aircraft using radio-frequency signals. By providing a ground-based solution entirely independent of GPS, systems of the present disclosure can make navigation systems more accurate and robust, enhancing their effectiveness and safety. More precisely, systems of the present disclosure may employ a series of ground-based beacon transmitters to provide coverage across a defined geographic region. Primary beacon transmitters may be used to generate a radio-frequency (RF) signal pulse with a highly regular frequency. A larger number of secondary beacon transmitters may be used to re-transmit these RF signal pulses with a tightly controlled turnaround time. A locating receiver can detect the arrival times of these pulses and use this information, along with stored information about the relative positions of the beacon transmitters, to determine its location.

A system and method for capturing an unmanned aerial vehicle includes a net configured to receive the unmanned aerial vehicle, an infrared emitter arrangement including a plurality of infrared emitters arranged around the net, an infrared sensor mounted to the unmanned aerial vehicle and configured to detect the infrared emitter arrangement, and a processor that is in communication with the infrared sensor and configured to adjust an azimuth and elevation of the unmanned aerial vehicle based on the detected infrared emitter arrangement in a field-of-view of the infrared sensor.

In examples, systems and methods for a radiating system of an aircraft are described. The aircraft system includes a conformal antenna array having a flexible substrate configured to conform to a curvature of a portion of an aircraft. Additionally, the conformal array has a plurality of antenna elements coupled to a first surface of the flexible substrate, where the plurality of antennas are formed in an array. The aircraft system further includes radio front-end hardware configured to communicate signals to and from the plurality of antenna elements. Moreover, the aircraft system includes a radar processing system coupled to the radio front-end hardware. Yet further, the aircraft system includes a renewable energy source configured to power the radar processing system and the radio front-end hardware.

A radio beacon system configured to assist autonomous flight of one or more unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), wherein the radio beacon system comprises: —a drone device (200), configured to be installed on an UAV and including a radio transceiver, and —a radio beacon device (100), configured to be installed on ground and including N antenna arrays (110, 120) with N≥2, one or more radio transceivers configured to communicate with the radio transceiver of the drone device (200), and at least one processing unit (130), wherein each antenna array (110, 120) has M antenna elements (115, 125) with M≥2 associated to respective beamforming electronic weights w(n, m), with n ranging from 1 to N and m ranging from 1 to M, wherein said at least one processing unit (130) is configured to perform an adaptive beamforming method for assisting autonomous flight of the UAV.

An approach is provided for dynamic beacons address allocation. The approach involves reporting, by each child node of a beacon tree structure, to a parent node, a load collection packet including a load count of each child node. Each child node is either a leaf node or a parent node. The parent node is either a root node or a child node reporting to another node. The parent node is located on a shortest path from a leaf node to the root node. The load count is a total number of the other nodes reporting to the parent node plus one. The approach also involves receiving, by each child node from the parent node, an address distribution packet that includes a contiguous logical address range and a weighted distance to the root node (WDR). The WDR and/or the tree structure are provided as an input for a drone navigation task.

The invention relates to a method and a system for aircraft navigation along a predetermined airway, including an on-board navigation system supplying a positioning integrity of the aircraft during flight relative to said airway respecting an expected position precision performance level, and at least one on-board radio receiver on the aircraft suitable for communicating with at least one land-based radio beacon suitable for supplying a distance of the aircraft relative to said radio beacon. The system includes a module configured to obtain, from a current position of the aircraft and stored data, a tuple of radio beacons to be used, a module configured to obtain a distance measurement of the aircraft relative to each of the N radio beacons of said tuple, a module configured to compute an integrity position from distance measurements obtained by a predetermined computing method, and a module configured to use the computed integrity position as current integrity position.

In examples, systems and methods for a radiating system of an aircraft are described. The aircraft system includes a conformal antenna array having a flexible substrate configured to conform to a curvature of a portion of an aircraft. Additionally, the conformal array has a plurality of antenna elements coupled to a first surface of the flexible substrate, where the plurality of antennas are formed in an array. The aircraft system further includes radio front-end hardware configured to communicate signals to and from the plurality of antenna elements. Moreover, the aircraft system includes a radar processing system coupled to the radio front-end hardware. Yet further, the aircraft system includes a renewable energy source configured to power the radar processing system and the radio front-end hardware.

An approach is provided for dynamic beacons address allocation. The approach involves reporting, by each child node of a beacon tree structure, to a parent node, a load collection packet including a load count of each child node. Each child node is either a leaf node or a parent node. The parent node is either a root node or a child node reporting to another node. The parent node is located on a shortest path from a leaf node to the root node. The load count is a total number of the other nodes reporting to the parent node plus one. The approach also involves receiving, by each child node from the parent node, an address distribution packet that includes a contiguous logical address range and a weighted distance to the root node (WDR). The WDR and/or the tree structure are provided as an input for a drone navigation task.

The following describes a drone guidance system and method utilizing a plurality of Bluetooth emitters that transmit indicator information to the drone, which can utilize the indicator information to determine if it is on the intended path or alternatively determine if it is near a prohibited flying zone. In alternative embodiments, the drone can communicate with the emitters, which can relay information to a pre-flight database.

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for drone delivery. One of the methods includes: receiving, at the UAV, information about a location of a drop beacon comprising GPS coordinates of a location of a drop beacon; navigating the UAV towards the location based on the information using GPS coordinates of the drop beacon; when reaching a proximity of the drop beacon, transmitting a first radio signal from the UAV with information relatable by the drop beacon; receiving, at the UAV, a second radio signal from the drop beacon; identifying, at the UAV, a line-of-sight signal from the drop beacon; navigating the UAV to the drop beacon based on the line-of-sight signal; and delivering, from the UAV, the goods to the location of the drop beacon.