SCANNING ENVIRONMENTS AND TRACKING UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES

摘要

Systems and methods for scanning environments and tracking unmanned aerial vehicles within the scanned environments are disclosed. A method in accordance with a particular embodiment includes using a rangefinder off-board an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) to identify points in a region. The method can further include forming a computer-based map of the region with the points and using the rangefinder and a camera to locate the UAV as it moves in the region. The location of the UAV can be compared with locations on the computer-based map and, based upon the comparison, the method can include transmitting guidance information to the UAV. In a further particular embodiment, two-dimensional imaging data is used in addition to the rangefinder data to provide color information to points in the region.

主权项

1. A system, having a processor, for scanning and mapping an environment in which an unmanned aerial vehicle is expected to operate, the system comprising:
a camera configured to capture two-dimensional optical images of the environment; a first component coupled to the camera to identify features within one or more of the captured two-dimensional optical images of the environment; a rangefinder configured to generate depth data at least in part by determining or estimating the distance from the rangefinder to each of a plurality of the identified features; a second component coupled to the rangefinder to transform the generated depth data from spherical coordinates to Cartesian coordinates; and a third component coupled to the first and second components to generate a three-dimensional point cloud model of the environment based at least in part on the transformed depth data.