ACCIDENT MONITORING USING REMOTELY OPERATED OR AUTONOMOUS AERIAL VEHICLES

摘要

A system to monitor vehicle accidents using a network of aerial based monitoring systems, terrestrial based monitoring systems and in-vehicle monitoring systems is described. Aerial vehicles used for this surveillance include manned and unmanned aircraft, satellites and lighter than air craft. Aerial vehicles can also be deployed from vehicles. The deployment is triggered by sensors registering a pattern in the data that is indicative of an accident that has happened or an accident about to happen.

主权项

1. A vehicle accident surveillance network comprising at least one of:
a) one or more surveillance systems comprising:
i) a sensor suite configured to observe ground based vehicles;ii) a pattern recognition module configured to interpret the sensor suite readings as vehicle movements, locations, pending accidents, and accident incidents and to identify specific vehicles; andiii) a wireless transceiver configured to transmit and receive the identity and location of specific vehicles that had pattern identified, to surveillance systems; b) one or more deployable aerial surveillance systems comprising:
i) an airframe configured to launch from one of a ground based vehicle, and fixed base station, and a larger airframe, wherein a launch is triggered by detection of a pattern indicative of an accident occurring or about to occur as detected by one or more of the surveillance systems;ii) a second wireless transceiver configured to receive the identity and location of the vehicle or vehicles which correspond to identified patterns from one or more surveillance systems;iii) a directional sensor suite configured to be directed towards the identified vehicle or vehicles after deployment of the aerial surveillance system;iv) an aerial surveillance module configured to:
(1) receive the location of the vehicle or vehicles identified by one or more surveillance systems;(2) launch the one or more deployable aerial surveillance systems;(3) after being launched, determine the relative location of the identified vehicle or vehicles, and one or more of: approach the identified vehicle, circle the accident scene at a predetermined circumference and altitude, and point the directional sensors towards the vehicle or vehicles and record the sensor data.