Parrot

Parrot Drones

Other

Seydoux, Henri

Henri Seydoux

Flavien Morra

Guillaume Savoye

Francois Callou

Benoit Pochon

Bertrand Vignau-Lous

Guillaume Pinto

Edouard Simoens

Martin Lefebure

Arsene Ferrand

Nicolas Brulez

Gaspard Florentz

Mathieu Babel

Cedric Chaperon

Nicolas Besnard

Frederic D'Haeyer

Jérôme Mathieu

Jean-Pierre Talvard

Farid Zaouia

Axel Balley

Arsène Ferrand

Guillame Savoy

Quentin Quadrat

Claire Jonchery

Frédéric Pirat

Luc Banda

Jean-Baptiste Lanfrey

Cédric Chaperon

Benoît Pochon

François Callou

Maël Donnard

Frédéric D'Haeyer

The inertial unit, IMU, of the drone is mounted on a main circuit board. The IMU () includes an internal temperature sensor delivering a chip temperature signal (&#x3b8;&#xb0;). A heating component () is mounted on the circuit board near the IMU, and it is provided a thermal guide, incorporated to the circuit board, extending between the heating component and the IMU so as to allow a transfer to the IMU of the heat produced by the heating component. This thermal guide may in particular be a metal planar layer incorporated to the board, in particular a ground plane. A thermal regulation circuit (-) receives as an input the chip temperature signal (&#x3b8;) and a set-point temperature signal (&#x3b8;&#xb0;), and delivers a piloting signal (_) of the heating component, so as to control the heat supply to the IMU. It is in particular possible to use this fast increase in temperature to perform a complete calibration of the IMU in a few minutes.

Drone including advance means for compensating the bias of the inertial unit as a function of the temperature

The drone comprises a camera (), an inertial unit () measuring the drone angles, and an extractor module () delivering image data of a mobile capture area of reduced size dynamically displaced in a direction opposite to that of the variations of angle measured by the inertial unit. The module analyses the image data elements of the useful area to assign to each one a weighting coefficient representative of a probability of belonging to the sky, and defines dynamically a boundary of segmentation (F) of the useful area between sky and ground as a function of these weighting coefficients. Two distinct groups of regions of interest ROIs are defined, for the sky area and for the ground area, respectively, and the dynamic exposure control means are controlled as a function of the image data of the ROIs of one of these groups, in particular by excluding the ROIs of the sky area.

Drone with a front-view camera with segmentation of the sky image for auto-exposure control

The system comprises a drone and a ground station. The ground station includes a console provided with a directional antenna adapted to be directed towards the drone maintain the quality of the wireless link with the latter, and virtual reality glasses rendering images taken by a camera of the drone. The system comprises means for determining the position of the drone with respect to a heading of the console, and means for including in the images (I) rendered in the virtual reality glasses a visual indication (C, Ce, G, Id) of misalignment of the drone with respect to the console heading. Although he is isolated from the external real environment, the pilot is able, based on this visual indication, to reorient the console, typically by turning on himself, so that the directional antenna thereof suitably points towards the drone.

System for piloting a drone in immersion

This system comprises a drone and a remote station with virtual reality glasses rendering images transmitted from the drone, and provided with means for detecting changes of orientation of the user's head. The drone generates a 'viewpoint' image (P') and a 'bird's eye' image (P&#x2032;) whose field is wider and whose definition is lower. When the sight axis of the &#x201c;viewpoint&#x201d; image is modified in response to changes of position of the user's head, the station generates locally during the movement of the user's head a combination of the current &#x201c;viewpoint&#x201d; and &#x201c;bird's eye&#x201d; images, with outlines (CO&#x2032;) adjusted as a function of the changes of position detected by the detection means.

Video system for piloting a drone in immersive mode

The system comprises a drone and a ground station with a console adapted to be directed towards the drone, and virtual reality glasses rendering images taken by a camera of the drone. The system further comprises means for modifying the framing of the images taken by the camera as a function of framing instructions received from the ground station. It further comprises relative heading determination means (-) for periodically elaborating an angular difference between the orientation of the glasses and the orientation of the console, and means () for elaborating framing instructions for the drone as a function said angular difference. The sudden changes of framing when the user simply turns the console and his whole body, head included, towards the drone to follow it in its displacements, are hence avoided.

Drone immersion-piloting system

This unit implements a remote-control console () supporting a tablet (). The console comprises a TX/RX module () interfaced with a TX/RX module () of the tablet to form a first Wi-Fi local network, which is a short-range standard network. The console comprises another specific TX/RX module (), interfaced with an TX/RX module () of the drone () to form a second Wi-Fi local network, which is an optimized long-range network, both being networks operating on non-shared channels. A bidirectional routing module () ensures the interfacing between the two Wi-Fi networks, to allow the transparent exchange of data between the drone () and the tablet (), as well as with levers and buttons of the console () or with a peripheral () connected thereto.

Long-range drone remote-control equipment

Sun cap for a digital device

The drone comprises altitude determination means (), with an estimator () combining the measures of an ultrasound telemetry sensor () and of a barometric sensor () to deliver an absolute altitude value of the drone in a terrestrial system. The estimator comprises a predictive filter () incorporating a representation of a dynamic model of the drone making it possible to predict the altitude based on the motor commands () and to periodically readjust this prediction as a function of the signals delivered by the telemetry sensor () and the barometric sensor (). Validation means analyze the reflected echoes and possibly modify the parameters of the estimator and/or allow or invalidate the signals of the telemetry sensor. The echo analysis also makes it possible to deduce the presence and the configuration of an obstacle within the operating range of the telemetry sensor, to apply if need be a suitable corrective action.

Altitude estimator for a rotary-wing drone with multiple rotors

The appliance includes a touch screen and wireless data transmission implementation for communicating with the drone. Drone piloting commands are activated by fingers contacting and/or moving over locations of corresponding piloting symbols displayed on the screen. The method proceeds by: detecting finger contact at an arbitrary contact point in at least one predefined zone of the screen on which piloting symbols are not already displayed; displaying a piloting icon on the screen at the contact point, the piloting icon including a movable icon displayed at a position that tracks any movement of the finger contact point over the screen from an initial position to an offset position; detecting the movement of the movable icon; on detecting the movement, analyzing the direction and/or the amplitude of the movement relative to the initial position; and activating a piloting command as a function of the result of the analysis.

Method and an appliance for remotely controlling a drone, in particular a rotary wing drone

The lighting device () includes means for switching a light source on and/or off and search means suitable for detecting and identifying neighboring objects () present in the proximity of the device and provided with radio transmitter circuits, e.g. of the Bluetooth type, that are suitable for interfacing with the device. The device includes means for causing it to switch off, and possibly to switch on, said means co-operating with the search means () to detect the appearance or the disappearance of neighboring objects in the radio range of the lighting device, and to trigger switching off of the light source on detecting the disappearance of at least one neighboring object, conditionally as a function of predetermined criteria. Switching is controlled essentially without orders being transmitted from neighboring objects to cause the lamp to switch off or on. A plurality of devices of the same type may be configured with one another and with the neighboring objects they have detected, in a hierarchical network topology.

Automatically controlled lighting device, and an installation including a plurality of such devices

Flying toy

The method comprises, in the time domain, echo cancellation processing () by subtracting from the microphone signal a reference signal delivered by an adaptive circuit for modeling the acoustic coupling between the microphone () and the loudspeaker (). Successive frames of the signal are subjected in the frequency domain to processing () for suppressing the residual echo that remains after the echo cancellation, together with noise reduction processing (). The residual echo suppression processing comprises estimating respective values for the power of the residual echo over a plurality of defined frequency bands for successive signal frames, then calculating and applying a variable gain specific to each frequency band and to each frame, the respective gains being smaller whenever the estimated relative power of the residual echo is high for the frequency band under consideration, and vice versa. For each frequency band and for each frame, the respective values of the power of the ambient noise present in the microphone signal are estimated a priori, and the relative levels of the power of the noise and of the power of the residual echo in the microphone signal are compared. The variable gain is a function of the estimated relative power of the residual echo when its level is greater than that of the noise, and otherwise of the estimated relative power of the noise.

Method of reducing residual acoustic echo after echo suppression in a 'hands free' device

A device comprising a circuit for picking up acoustic signals with the microphone; a circuit for playing back audio signals with an amplifier and a loudspeaker; an interface circuit for interfacing with a telephone network or a cell phone; and a circuit for digitally processing audio signals and reducing the acoustic echo that results from interaction of the loudspeaker with the microphone. The circuit for digitally processing audio signals comprises: an echo cancellation stage with an adaptive linear filter suitable for subtracting from the signal picked up by the microphone a reference signal that is derived from the signal received at the output from the interface; a gain control stage for suppressing the residual echo, and a stage for selectively reducing the background noise present in the signal received at the output from the echo suppression stage.

Acoustic echo reduction circuit for a 'hands-free' device usable with a cell phone

Growing community of inventors

Paris, France

Henri Seydoux