Patent Issued for Indoor drone flight awareness system (USPTO 11434005): United Services Automobile Association

2022 SEP 26 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States) has been issued patent number 11434005, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Allen, Michael J. (San Antonio, TX, US), Ethington, Benjamin (Savannah, TX, US), Farnsworth, Anthony Scott (San Antonio, TX, US), Matheson, Cory (Celina, TX, US), Newmark, Jordan A. (Fair Oaks Ranch, TX, US), Swain, Kathleen L. (Kemah, TX, US).

This patent was filed on June 26, 2020 and was published online on September 6, 2022.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “Unmanned vehicles (e.g., unmanned aerial vehicles) are known for their use in combat zones. In combat zones, they are often used to surveille an area, damage a structures, or lethally wound a potential enemy combatant. The use of unmanned vehicles can go far beyond the aforementioned examples, especially outside of a combat zone and in a commercial setting. Businesses of all sorts are now developing innovative ways to use unmanned vehicles to benefit their business.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Unmanned vehicles can be terrestrial, aerial, nautical, or multi-mode. Unmanned vehicles may be used to survey inside of a home or other property, map the home, and send data back to a server. Exemplary methods and systems provide feedback about information gathered about a structure. This feedback may help explain the progress of a mission of an unmanned vehicle when traveling around the home. For example, the feedback may be a map that is continually updated on a mobile device synched with the unmanned vehicle.

“In one example, a device may include a processor and a memory. The memory may be coupled with the processor and store instructions that when executed the processor cause the processor to effectuate operations such as analyzing information regarding a location, wherein the information comprises sensor information gathered by the at least one sensor of an at least one unmanned vehicle and based on the analyzed information (e.g., number or type of personal items or damage to items), providing instructions to the one or more to a secondary device to display a graphic indicative of a condition of the location (e.g., floor plan or heat map).

“This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter. Furthermore, the claimed subject matter is not constrained to limitations that solve any or all disadvantages noted in any part of this disclosure.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A unmanned vehicle, the unmanned vehicle comprising: a processor; and a memory coupled with the processor, the memory having stored thereon executable instructions that when executed by the processor to cause the processor to effectuate operations comprising: obtaining, from a security system, instructions to identify the cause of a detected motion within a structure; and transmitting, to the security system, instructions to disregard movement of the unmanned vehicle within the structure.

“2. The unmanned vehicle of claim 1, the operations further comprising notifying the security system that the cause of the detected motion is innocuous.

“3. The unmanned vehicle of claim 1, the operations further comprising notifying the security system that the cause of the detected motion is innocuous, wherein the cause of the detected motion is a pet.

“4. The unmanned vehicle of claim 1, the operations further comprising: obtaining a notification that the cause of the detected motion is unauthorized; and contacting authorities about the cause of the detected motion.

“5. The unmanned vehicle of claim 1, the operations further comprising closing a window to enable the security system to be turned on.

“6. The unmanned vehicle of claim 1, the operations further comprising closing a door to enable the security system to be turned on.

“7. The unmanned vehicle of claim 1, the operations further comprising closing a window to enable the security system to be reset.

“8. The unmanned vehicle of claim 1, the operations further comprising closing a door to enable the security system to be reset.

“9. The unmanned vehicle of claim 1, the operations further comprising obtaining navigational rules to keep a buffer distance based on a type of object.

“10. The unmanned vehicle of claim 1, the operations further comprising obtaining navigational rules to keep a buffer distance based on a type of object, wherein a buffer distance for a fragile object is larger than a buffer distance for a durable object.

“11. The unmanned vehicle of claim 1, the operations further comprising obtaining navigational rules to keep a buffer distance based on a type of object, wherein a buffer distance for a glass object is larger than a buffer distance for a durable object.

“12. The unmanned vehicle of claim 1, the operations further comprising relaying the instructions to another unmanned vehicle to cooperatively identify the cause of the detected motion within the structure.

“13. The unmanned vehicle of claim 1, the operations further comprising relaying the instructions to another unmanned vehicle to identify the cause of the detected motion within the structure instead of the unmanned vehicle.

“14. The unmanned vehicle of claim 1, the operations further comprising: based on a comparison of unmanned vehicle and another unmanned vehicle performance for identifying the cause of the detected motion, relaying the instructions to the another unmanned vehicle to identify the cause of the detected motion within the structure instead of the unmanned vehicle.

“15. The unmanned vehicle of claim 1, the operations further comprising: generating a heat map that is indicative of the condition of the structure, wherein the heat map is: a graphical representation of data based on gathered information about a structure, and the graphical representation of data is represented as colors; and navigating the unmanned vehicle based on the colors of the heat map.

“16. The unmanned vehicle of claim 1, the operations further comprising: generating a heat map that is indicative of the condition of the structure, wherein the heat map is: a graphical representation of data based on gathered information about a structure, and the graphical representation of data is represented as colors; and surveilling the structure based on the colors of the heat map.

“17. The unmanned vehicle of claim 1, the operations further comprising surveilling the structure based on colors of a heat map associated with valuables within the structure.

“18. A method comprising: obtaining, by a computing device from a security system, instructions to identify the cause of a detected motion within a structure; and transmitting, by the computing device, to the security system, instructions to disregard movement of the unmanned vehicle within the structure.

“19. The method of claim 18, wherein the method further comprises notifying, by the computing device, the security system that the cause of the detected motion is innocuous.

“20. The method of claim 18, wherein the method further comprises closing, by the computing device, a window or door to enable the security system to be turned on or reset.”

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Allen, Michael J. Indoor drone flight awareness system. U.S. Patent Number 11434005, filed June 26, 2020, and published online on September 6, 2022. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11434005.PN.&OS=PN/11434005RS=PN/11434005

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