United Technologies Corporation

Kevin P McGonigle

James P Cycon

John R Ferraro

James A Monson

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has a toroidal fuselage and a rotor assembly having a pair of counter-rotating rotors secured in fixed coaxial combination with the toroidal fuselage to provide a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capability for the UAV. One embodiment of the VTOL UAV is especially configured for ground surveillance missions by the inclusion of an externally mounted, remotely controllable stowable sensor subsystem that provides an azimuthal scanning capability and a predetermined elevation/depression scanning capability to accomplish the ground surveillance mission and a foldable landing gear subsystem to facilitate landing of the VTOL UAV at unprepared ground surveillance sites.

Unmanned VTOL ground surveillance vehicle

A control system for automatically loading and unloading a vehicle (10) from a cargo compartment comprises a plurality of distance measuring sensors (31,32,33,34) attached to specified locations on the exterior surfaces of the vehicle (54,56,57) and the cargo compartment (55). The sensors provide distance signals, indicative of the distance between each sensor and the nearest obstruction, to a microprocessor which compares each of the distance signals to reference signals indicative of the minimum allowable clearance between each specified location and an obstruction. During activation of an automatic loading/unloading switch (70), a winch (39) is activated to move the vehicle into or out of a cargo compartment if each of the distances is greater than the corresponding minimum allowable clearance. If any clearance is less than the minimum allowable clearance while the vehicle is being moved, movement of the vehicle is automatically stopped and the height of the vehicle is adjusted (800-815) until all of the distances are greater than the corresponding minimum allowable clearances, after which the winch is reactivated to continue moving the vehicle. The cycle is repeated until the helicopter is in its final position or the automatic loading/unloading switch is released.

Growing community of inventors

Milford, CT, United States of America

Kevin P McGonigle