The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.

The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.

Date of Patent:
Jul. 30, 2019

Filed:

Sep. 21, 2015
Applicant:

Amazon Technologies, Inc., Seattle, WA (US);

Inventors:

Jon T. Hanlon, Mercer Island, WA (US);

Neil Whitney Woodward, III, Seattle, WA (US);

Assignee:

Amazon Technologies, Inc., Seattle, WA (US);

Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Assistant Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
B64C 39/02 (2006.01); G05D 1/10 (2006.01);
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
B64C 39/022 (2013.01); B64C 39/024 (2013.01); G05D 1/101 (2013.01); B64C 2201/024 (2013.01); B64C 2201/141 (2013.01);
Abstract

A UAV tethering system provides an environment in which to fly an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) where the tether is selected to prevent the UAV from unintentional contact with the ground or other objects within the flight area. A tether may connect the UAV to a shuttle that slides along a track. The tether may be used to provide efficient, robust and accurate positioning information. The system can be configured to detect the angle at which the tethering line extends from the shuttle, the length of the extended tethering line, and then compute the position of the UAV relative to the shuttle. Furthermore, by knowing the position of the shuttle, the absolute position of the UAV can be determined.


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