Damage avoidance system for unmanned aerial vehicle

摘要

This disclosure describes an unmanned aerial vehicle (“UAV”) and system that may perform one or more techniques for protecting objects from damage resulting from an unintended or uncontrolled impact by a UAV. As described herein, various implementations utilize a damage avoidance system that detects a risk of damage to an object caused by an impact from a UAV that has lost control and takes steps to reduce or eliminate that risk. For example, the damage avoidance system may detect that the UAV has lost power and/or is falling at a rapid rate of descent such that, upon impact, there is a risk of damage to an object with which the UAV may collide. Upon detecting the risk of damage and prior to impact, the damage avoidance system activates a damage avoidance system having one or more protection elements that work in concert to reduce or prevent damage to the object upon impact by the UAV.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
under control of one or more computing systems configured with executable instructions,
determining a risk of damage resulting from an impact between an unmanned aerial vehicle and an object;determining that the risk of damage exceeds a threshold;determining an orientation of the unmanned aerial vehicle relative to the object;selecting a protection element, from a plurality of protection elements, for deployment based at least in part on the determined orientation; anddeploying from the unmanned aerial vehicle, prior to the impact, the protection element configured to reduce a damage to at least one of the object or the unmanned aerial vehicle caused by the impact between the unmanned aerial vehicle and the object.