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In a world where drones perform a multitude of tasks, it is not unforeseeable that several UAV companies will use the same airspace at the same time. While one company can keep meticulous safety margins for its own UAV fleet, it does not necessarily know where other UAVs may be operating. To avoid mid-air collisions, Wing Aviation has patented adding a sensor to their UAVs to receive ADS-B signals.
According to Wikipedia, “Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS-B) is an aviation surveillance technology and form of electronic conspicuity in which an aircraft determines its position via satellite navigation or other sensors and periodically broadcasts its position and other related data, enabling it to be tracked.” This means that the UAVs can see other aircraft that are also equipped with ADS-B.
As the patent states, “Often, a fleet of UAVs is controlled by a central system that provides planned route information to UAVs which then autonomously navigate the planned routes. While the central system can attempt to ensure that none of the planned routes will conflict with each other (i.e., no UAV traversing a planned route will come within a safety margin of another UAV), the central system may not have information about other aircraft that are not part of the fleet of UAVs that may be present in an operating region for the fleet of UAVs, including but not limited to general aviation aircraft.”
If an ‘intruder’ aircraft is detected the UAV’s onboard computer can either alter the flight path or ground the drone as long as there is a safe spot to land.
Claim 1: “A non-transitory computer-readable medium having logic stored thereon that, in response to execution by one or more processors of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), causes the UAV to perform actions comprising: receiving at least one ADS-B message from an intruder aircraft; generating an intruder location prediction based on the at least one ADS-B message; comparing the intruder location prediction for the intruder aircraft to an ownship location prediction for the UAV to detect conflicts; and in response to detecting a conflict between the intruder location prediction and the ownship location prediction: determining a safe landing location along a planned route for the UAV; and descending to land at the safe landing location; wherein the ownship location prediction for the UAV is based on at least a current location of the UAV, a planned route being traversed, and a prediction of windspeed experienced by the UAV.”
Title: “Autonomous Control Techniques For Avoiding Collisions With Cooperative Aircraft”
US Patent No: 12165532
Filed (US Reg.): 2022-01-21
Granted: 2024-12-10
Applicant: Wing Aviation LLC
