Patent Issued for Systems And Methods For Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (USPTO 10,896,468)

2021 JAN 29 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Hopkins, III, John Chandler (San Antonio, TX); Bueche, Jr., Michael Patrick (San Antonio, TX); Buentello, Andre Rene (San Antonio, TX); Hillman, James Philip (San Antonio, TX); Billman, Bradly Jay (San Antonio, TX), filed on December 4, 2012, was published online on February 1, 2021, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 10,896,468 is assigned to United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Customers demand more of the products and services they use than ever before. They insist that the companies they deal with on a regular basis provide them greater and greater levels of accuracy and more tailored service offerings. Companies configure and operate ever increasing numbers of computer systems to achieve this.

“Using sources of information that have traditionally been unavailable when service these customers is now expected. For instance, telemetry data from vehicles operated by a customer could be used to derive a risk that the customer presents in their auto insurance policy. In this manner, the policy could be tailored to an individual and not generalized over a grouping of customers.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In an embodiment, a method of processing overhead imagery includes receiving one or more overhead images from at least one image source, detecting one or more features on a property, deriving business information using the one or more features and providing the business information. In a further embodiment, the business information may be used for either determining premiums for an insurance policy on the property, or for adjusting an insurance claim to compensate for damage experienced on the property.

“In another embodiment, a method of processing overhead imagery includes receiving one or more overhead images which contain a number of properties, correlating the one or more images with one or more land maps, parsing the properties into collections of individual properties, determining values for each of the properties and aggregating the values. In a further embodiment, a weather event footprint may be forecast and investment decisions made using the aggregated values.

“In another embodiment, an apparatus to process overhead imagery includes an overhead image module to receive and positionally correlate overhead images, and an image analyzer to determine one or more features on a property. In further embodiments, the one or more features may include risks to a structure on the property, or structural damage to a structure on the property.

“In another embodiment, a method includes accessing an aerial image including a property, determining an owner of the property, determining whether the owner of the property is eligible to be a member of a financial institution, determining whether the owner of the property has property insurance with the financial institution for the property type of the property in the aerial image, and presenting to the owner, an offer for property insurance to insure the property in the aerial image when the owner is determined to be eligible for the financial institution and when the owner does not have property insurance with the financial institution.

“In another embodiment, a method includes obtaining an aerial image of a plurality of properties, determining a plurality of damage estimates for the plurality of properties, and reserving resources to repair the plurality of properties based on the plurality of damage estimates.

“In another embodiment, a method includes receiving information describing property damage to an insured property, determining a cause of the property damage, and based on the cause of the property damage, conditionally deploying a unmanned aerial vehicle to perform insurance adjustment activities with regard to the insured property.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“What is claimed is:

“1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions directed at receiving, analyzing, and managing electronic communications related to a property insurance claim, the instructions, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to: receive notification of property damage to an insured property; determine a cause of the property damage; cause, based on the cause of the property damage, a vehicle to deploy; generate data associated with the insured property via penetrating radar through utilization of the vehicle; based on the generated data, determine integrity of a structure of the insured property; and based on the integrity of the structure and satellite imagery of the insured property, determine an amount of physical damage to the structure.

“2. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, further comprising instructions to analyze the insured property via X-ray of the vehicle; and further determining integrity of the structure of the insured property.

“3. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, further comprising instructions to: further deploy the vehicle to a property in proximity to the insured property to perform an insurance-related activity.

“4. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the cause of the property damage comprises a wide-area event.

“5. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 4, wherein the wide-area event comprises a weather event.

“6. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 3, wherein the insurance-related activity comprises performing an insurance adjustment to the property in proximity to the insured property.

“7. A method comprising: receiving, at a processor-based system with memory, notification of property damage to an insured property; determining a cause of the property damage; causing, based on the cause of the property damage, a vehicle to deploy; generating data associated with the insured property through utilization of penetrating radar of the vehicle; based on the generated data, determining integrity of a structure of the insured property; and based on the integrity of the structure and satellite imagery of the insured property, determining an amount of physical damage to the insured property.

“8. The method of claim 7, further comprising determining that the property damage renders the insured property unsafe or inaccessible to a human adjuster.

“9. The method of claim 7, further comprising: further deploying the vehicle to a property in proximity to the insured property to perform an insurance-related activity.

“10. The method of claim 7, wherein the cause of the property damage comprises a wide-area event.

“11. The method of claim 10, wherein the wide-area event comprises a weather event.

“12. The method of claim 9, wherein the insurance-related activity comprises performing an insurance adjustment to the property in proximity to the insured property.

“13. A system directed at receiving, analyzing, and managing electronic communications related to a property insurance claim, the system comprising: a computational processor; and a memory comprising instructions, which when executed by the processor, cause the processor to: receive information describing property damage to at least one insured property; determine a damage estimate and cause of the property damage; deploy an unmanned aerial vehicle to perform insurance adjustment activities with regard to the insured property when the cause of the property damage comprises an event of a first type; generate data associated with the at least one insured property through utilization of penetrating radar of the unmanned aerial vehicle; based on the generated data, determining integrity of a structure of the insured property; and based on the integrity of the structure and satellite imagery of the insured property, determine an amount of physical damage to the structure.

“14. The system of claim 13, further comprising instructions to determine that the property damage renders the at least one insured property unsafe or inaccessible to a human adjuster.

“15. The system of claim 13, wherein the cause of the property damage comprises a wide-area event, and wherein determining the damage estimate for the property damage comprises determining a plurality of damage estimates for a plurality of properties.

“16. The system of claim 15, wherein the wide-area event comprises a weather event, and wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, further cause the processor to determine a resource, based on the plurality of damage estimates, to repair the plurality of properties.

“17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the physical material is selected from the group consisting of a type of roofing, a type of housing exterior, a window, and driveway material.

“18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions, when executed by the computer, further cause the computer to cause a satellite device to generate the satellite imagery of the insured property.

“19. The system of claim 13, further comprising the unmanned aerial vehicle.

“20. The system of claim 19, wherein the unmanned aerial vehicle comprises a plurality of interchangeable sensors; wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, further cause the processor to cause exchange, based on the property damage, of one or more of the plurality of interchangeable sensors; and wherein the analyzing the insured property further comprises analyzing data associated with the insured property and gathered, by the unmanned aerial vehicle and using the one or more of the plurality of interchangeable sensors.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Hopkins, III, John Chandler; Bueche, Jr., Michael Patrick; Buentello, Andre Rene; Hillman, James Philip; Billman, Bradly Jay. Systems And Methods For Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. U.S. Patent Number 10,896,468, filed December 4, 2012, and published online on February 1, 2021. 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=10,896,468.PN.&OS=PN/10,896,468RS=PN/10,896,468

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