MULTI-ROTOR UAV FLIGHT CONTROL METHOD AND SYSTEM

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a method and system for flying rotary wing drone. An add-on flight camera that is free to rotate around the vehicle's yaw axis is attached to the drone. The flight camera is automatically looking in the direction of its flight. The video from the flight camera is streamed to the operator's display. Thus the rotary wing drone can fly in any direction with respect to its structure, giving the operator a first person view along the flight path, thus keeping high level of situational awareness to the operator. The information required for controlling the camera orientation is derived from sensors, such as GPS, magnetometers, gyros and accelerometer. As a backup mode the information can be derived from propeller commands or tilt sensors.

Claims

1. A method for remotely piloting a rotary wing drone flying in any direction, by streaming to the drone's operator a first-person-view video in the direction of the drone's flight, regardless of drone's yaw, the method comprising: a. fitting the drone with a video camera capable of rotating around drone's yaw axis; b. acquiring the projection of drone's flight direction on the natural plane in local coordinates; c. automatically turning the video camera so that the center of its field of view is aligned with the projection of the drone's flight direction on the natural plane; and d. continuously streaming the video from the video camera to an operator's client.

2. The method of claim 1, where the projection of the drone's flight direction on the natural plane is acquired from the drone's built-in electronics which include, among others, the drone's flight computer, a Global Position System, or an Inertial Measurement Unit or other type of an Inertial Navigation System.

3. The method of claim 1, where the projection of the drone's flight direction on the natural plane is acquired from an add-on hardware module.

4. The method of claim 1, where the projection of the drone's flight direction on the natural plane is computed from tilt sensors mounted on the drone's body.

5. The method of claim 1, where the projection of the drone's flight direction on the natural plane is computed from the commands applied to the drone's rotors.

6. The method of claim 1, where the projection of the drone's flight direction on the natural plane is derived by acquiring the drone's direction of flight in geographical coordinates, transforming and projecting it onto the drone's local coordinates.

7. The method of claim 6, where the drone's direction of flight in the geographical coordinates is acquired from the drone's built-in electronics which include, among others, a flight computer, a Global Position System, or an Inertial Measurement Unit or other type of an Inertial Navigation System.

8. The method of claim 1, where the video streamed from the video camera is an infra-red or thermal imaging video stream.

9. A method for piloting remotely a rotary wing drone in any direction relative to its local coordinates, by streaming first-person-view video to the drone's ground operator, where the center of field of view is pointing in the direction of the drone's flight, regardless of drone's yaw, the method comprising: a. fitting the drone with a plurality of fixed video cameras that provide 360 degree video coverage around the drone's yaw axis; b. acquiring the projection of the drone's flight direction on the natural plane; c. using the fixed camera's 360 degrees video, encode a limited field-of-view video, with the center of its field of view is aligned with the projection of drone's flight direction on the natural plane; and d. continuously streaming the video from the encoded limited field-of-view video camera to an operator's client.

10. The method of claim 9, where the projection of flight direction on the natural plane, is acquired from the drone's built-in electronics which include, among others, a flight computer, a Global Position System or an Inertial Measurement Unit or other type of an Inertial Navigation System.

11. The method of claim 9, where the projection of the drone's flight direction on the natural plane is acquired from an add-on hardware module.

12. The method of claim 9, where the projection of the drone's flight direction on the natural plane is computed from tilt sensors mounted on the drone's body.

13. The method of claim 9, where the projection of the drone's flight direction on the natural plane is computed from the commands applied to the drone's rotors.

14. The method of claim 9, where the projection of the drone's flight direction on the natural plane is derived by acquiring the drone's direction of flight in geographical coordinates and transforming and projecting it onto the drone's local coordinates.

15. The method of claim 14, where the drone's direction of flight in the geographical coordinates are acquired from the drone's built-in electronics which include, among others, a flight computer, a Global Position System and an Inertial Measurement Unit or other type of an Inertial Navigation System.

16. The method of claim 9, where the video streamed from the plurality of fixed cameras is an infra-red or thermal imaging video stream.

17. A system for piloting remotely a rotary wing drone, the system comprising: a. a 360-degrees-of-freedom gimbal attached on the drone that can rotate around drone's yaw axis; b. a video camera mounted on the gimbal; c. a motor, attached to the drone, capable of rotating the gimbal; d. a ground operator's client with video viewing capabilities; e. a downlink for transmitting data including video from the video camera to the ground operator's client; f. sensors for providing the required information for turning the camera to the desired orientation in the natural plane; and g. a processor including software running on it for: i. receiving required information from the sensors; ii. computing a desired camera rotation angle; and iii. controlling the motor.

18. The system as in claim 17, wherein the sensors provide information on the drone's direction of flight and the camera's current orientation, and software which: a. samples and signal-processes information from the sensors; b. computes the camera's orientation such that the center of its field of view is aligned with the direction of flight; and c. controls the motor.

19. The system as in claim 18, wherein the drone's direction of flight is obtained from tilt sensors.

20. The system as in claim 17, wherein the sensors comprise a Global Positioning System and a magnetometer, and software which: a. samples and signal-process information from the sensors; b. transforms the flight direction obtained from the Global Position System to local coordinates using data from the magnetometer, and c. controls the motor.

21. The system as in claim 17, wherein the sensors comprise a Global Positioning System, an Inertial Measurement Unit containing plurality of accelerometers gyros and magnetometer, and the software which: a. samples and signal-process information from the sensors; b. transforms the flight direction obtained from the Global Position System to local coordinates using data from gyroscopes and magnetometer; c. improves the accuracy of obtained flight direction by combining it with higher frequency data obtained from the accelerometers; and d. controls the motor.

22. The method of claim 17, where the data transmitted from the video camera is infra-red or thermal imaging video data.

23. A system for piloting remotely a rotary wing drone, the system comprising: a. a plurality of fixed video cameras that provide 360 degrees video coverage around drone's yaw axis; b. a ground operator's client with video viewing capabilities; c. a downlink for transmitting data including video from the video camera to ground operator's client; d. sensors for providing the required information for encoding a limited field-of-view video, with the center of its field-of-view pointing towards desired direction in local coordinates; e. a processor including software running on it for: i. receiving required information from the sensors; ii. computing desired camera center of field-of-view angle; and iii. encoding a limited field-of-view video with the center of its field-of-view pointing towards the direction in local coordinates.

24. The system as in claim 23, where the projection of drone's flight direction on the natural plan is computed from tilt sensors mounted on the drone's body.

25. The system as in claim 23, where the sensors comprise a Global Positioning System and a magnetometer, and software which: a. samples and signal-processes information from the sensors; b. transforms the bearing direction obtained from the GPS to local coordinates using data from magnetometers; and c. encodes a limited field-of-view video, with the center of its field-of-view pointing towards the direction in local coordinates.

26. The system as in claim 23, where the sensors comprise a Global Positioning System and an inertial-measurement-unit containing a plurality of accelerometers, gyros, and a magnetometer, and software which: a. samples and signal-process information from the sensors; b. transforms the flight direction obtained from the GPS to local coordinates using data from the gyroscopes and the magnetometer; c. improves the accuracy of obtained flight direction by combining it with higher frequency data obtained from the accelerometers; and d. encodes a limited field-of-view video, with the center of its field-of-view pointing towards the direction in local coordinates.

27. The method of claim 23, where the data transmitted from the video camera is infra-red or thermal imaging video data.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0014] FIG. 1 shows a top view of a typical rotary wing drone.

[0015] FIG. 2 shows a top view of rotary wing drone with the added flight camera.

[0016] FIG. 3 shows a block diagram of one embodiment of the flight camera.

[0017] FIG. 4 shows a block diagram of one embodiment of the flight camera alignment.

[0018] FIG. 5 presents another implementation of the disclosed invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0019] The invention will be described more fully hereinafter, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which certain possible embodiments of the invention are shown. The invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather these embodiments are provided so that the disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art.

[0020] The description that follows refers to a multi-rotor UAV as an example, albeit, the same solution is applicable to multirotor UAVs, unmanned helicopters and to ducted-fan air vehicles. All these UAV types are referred to as Rotary Wing Drone.

[0021] Throughout the rest of the specifications and the claims we shall use the following terms as they are defined hereunder.

[0022] Natural plane is a plane that passes through the drone's center of gravity and is perpendicular to the yaw axis of the rotary wing drone.

[0023] Local coordinates are Cartesian coordinates fixed relative to the structure of the rotary wing drone. Usually they are aligned with direction of the inertial measurement unit's sensors.

[0024] The direction of the drone's flight is the direction of its propagation.

[0025] Geographic coordinates are the coordinate system in which the GPS provides information on the flight direction of the rotating wing drone.

[0026] We further define first-person-view, also known as remote-person-view, or simply video piloting, as the method used to control a remote controlled vehicle from the driver's or pilot's view point as if they were sitting on board the vehicle.

[0027] FIG. 1 presents a top schematic view of a typical rotary wing drone 100 having four rotors. It is comprised of a body 102, to which four motor arms 104a, 104b 104c and 104d are symmetrically attached. At the end of each motor arm 104a, 104b, 104c, 104d, a propeller 106a, 106b, 106c, 106d is mounted. The rotors are driven by respective motors 108a, 108b, 108c and 108d. The propeller can be either with fixed pitch or variable pitch. The propellers of each diagonal rotate in the same direction i.e. rotors 106a and 106c rotate in one direction and rotors 106b and 106d rotate in opposite direction. The motion of the rotary wing drone is controlled by adjusting the spin speeds and optionally the pitch of its propellers. All the required electronic units are attached to the body of the rotary wing drone 102. As a minimum it contains a power unit, a motor control and drive unit and ground communication unit.

[0028] A top view of a rotary wing drone with the added flight camera unit, according to the invention is shown in FIG. 2. A video camera unit 210 is mounted on the body is comprised of a video camera 220 attached to a gimbal that is free to rotate around the yaw axis of the rotary wing drone. The yaw axis in the figure is perpendicular to the plane of the paper. The plane of the paper also represents the natural plane. The camera is controlled to look in the direction of the projection of the flight direction on the natural plane V230. The camera unit contains the required electronics that supports its operation. Note, that during calibration, the representation of the yaw axis in the local coordinate system has to be determined, as well as the zero reference direction of the video camera.

[0029] A detailed block diagram of the flight camera unit 350 is presented in FIG. 3. The flight-camera-unit 350 is comprised of a flight camera 320 firmly attached to 360? CW/CCW rotating camera pedestal 310. The camera pedestal is driven by a pedestal motor 354 which is controlled by pedestal servo controller 352. The pedestal servo controller accepts as a command the angle ? of the required center of the field of view of the camera. The flight camera unit includes a video transmitter 360, that transmits the video to a ground receiver and monitor 390. The signals to and from the camera are channeled via slip rings 356 and 358, one for the video signal and one for the power. All components get the energy from a power unit 362.

[0030] Block diagram of one embodiment of the invention is presented in FIG. 4. The flight-camera-system is comprised of a sensors unit 410, processing unit 420 and the flight camera unit 350. The sensors unit provides its data to a processing unit 420. The processor unit 420 computes the angle ? to which the flight camera has to be rotated in order to point in the direction of vehicle's direction of flight in the natural plane, and it provides driving signals to the flight camera unit 350 which rotates the camera to the desired direction. All components get their power from a power unit 450. The power unit can be independent or it can get its energy from the power source of the vehicle. Note that the sensors used by the system can be either add on sensors, or the rotary wing drone built in sensors.

[0031] The sensors unit 410 is comprised, as a minimum, of a GPS and magnetometers, and can include additional sensors such as accelerometers and gyros. The sensors provide the data required for the computation of the direction of the flight in local coordinates. The use of the additional sensors, results in improved accuracy in the positioning of the flight camera. It is important to note that the field of view of the flight camera is much wider than the magnetic deviation, so the error induced by the use of magnetometers and not the geographical north is meaningless. If accurate INS system is used, there is no need for the magnetometers.

[0032] FIG. 4 presents another implementation of the disclosed invention. This implementation can be used as a backup mode when GPS signals are blocked, such as in a building, or when the drone's flight is not affected by winds. In this implementation the direction of flight of the rotary wing drone is computed by the processor from the commands 522 sent to the propellers 510 by the flight controller 520.

[0033] In a similar way, the flight direction of the rotary wing drone, can be evaluated by tilt sensors attached to it. This method is also used as backup mode or when GPS signal is unavailable.

[0034] What has been described above are just a few possible embodiments of the disclosed invention. It is of course, not possible to describe every conceivable combination of components and/or methodologies, but one of ordinary skill in the art may recognize that many further combinations and permutations are possible. Accordingly, the invention is intended to embrace all such alterations, modifications, and variations that fall within the spirit and scope of the invention.