Engineering news
Amazon has been granted a patent for a voice-controlled, miniaturised unmanned aerial vehicle that could dock on police officer’s shoulders and be used to assist in tasks such as routine traffic stops.
The miniaturised unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are intended to provide ‘enhanced perception’ and could also include routines to locate objects or people including, for example, locating a lost child in a crowd or a lost vehicle in a car park.
The patent said that the systems can include significant “off-board processing support” to enable them to be smaller, lighter, and less expensive than conventional UAVs.
The UAVs would be voice commanded, or could be directed by a digital device, to carry out programmed tasks and use on board cameras to locate objects. Images would be sent via a transceiver to a central control location or another electronic device.
Taking further images of an object the drone would be able to send location data. It would also scan the object with a radio frequency identification (RFID) scanner; receiving a return signal from an RFID tag located on the object with the RFID scanner and send that data to the user or the central control.
In addition, the device could provide low altitude imagery following a hover command from a user, travel to a predetermined location and return to the user following a movement or command with visual information. For example, the UAV could be commanded to check a license plate and send the information to a central control for additional processing, and request additional information attached to the license plate.
The UAVs would also be able to record and send audio files and could have facial recognition software system to identify people in crowds.
Some of the designs featured in the patent include examples of a docking station, which could include a charging port.
The patent said: “Many situations arise in which a user may wish to review the situation from afar. This may be because the user needs a different vantage point (e.g. to see over a crowd), because the situation is dangerous (e.g. a foxhole or underground tunnel during a military manoeuvre), or because the user simply can't find their car in a crowded parking lot.
"In these situations, and others, it would be convenient to have a UAV to provide video, audio, or other data remotely to a user without the necessity for a remote control or other equipment. It would be especially convenient if the UAV were small enough to be carried on a person.”
The patent said that the system could also be applied to fixed-wing aircraft or ground-based vehicles to perform additional functions.
It is not known whether Amazon plans to develop the idea further.