Unmanned aerial vehicle with biometric verification

• US 10,579,863 B2
• Filed: 12/16/2015
• Issued: 03/03/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 12/16/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Global Tel-Link Corporation
• Original Assignee: Global Tel-Link Corporation
• Inventors: Volkart, Mitch
• Primary Examiner(s): Moyer, Andrew M
• Assistant Examiner(s): Rosario, Dennis
• Application Number:
  US14/971,891
• Publication Number:
  US 20170177925A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,539 Days
• CPC Class Codes: B64C 39/024 of the remote controlled vehicle type, i.e. RPV
• CPC Class Codes: B64U 2101/00 UAVs specially adapted for particular uses or applications
• CPC Class Codes: B64U 2101/30 for imaging, photography or videography
• CPC Class Codes: B64U 2101/55 for life-saving or rescue operations; for medical use
• CPC Class Codes: B64U 2201/00 UAVs characterised by their flight controls
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/00 Control of position, course, altitude or attitude of land, water, air or space vehicles, e.g. using automatic pilots drive control systems specially adapted for autonomous road vehicles B60W60/00
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0038 by providing the operator with simple or augmented images from one or more cameras located onboard the vehicle, e.g. tele-operation images analyzed by a computer and used for automatic navigation G05D1/0246
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0094 involving pointing a payload, e.g. camera, weapon, sensor, towards a fixed or moving target
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/62 relating to a temporal dimension, e.g. time-based feature extraction; Pattern tracking
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/13 Satellite images
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/17 taken from planes or by drones
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/52 Surveillance or monitoring of activities, e.g. for recognising suspicious objects recognising microscopic objects G06V20/69
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/58 Recognition of moving objects or obstacles, e.g. vehicles or pedestrians; Recognition of traffic objects, e.g. traffic signs, traffic lights or roads
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/172 Classification, e.g. identification
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/20 Movements or behaviour, e.g. gesture recognition recognition of facial expressions G06V40/16
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/00 Alarms responsive to a single specified undesired or abnormal condition and not otherwise provided for
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0039 Modification of a flight plan
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/00 Speaker identification or verification techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation

Abstract

Disclosed herein are system, method, and computer program product embodiments for locating, identifying, and tracking a known criminal, fugitive, missing person, and/or any other person of interest. An embodiment operates by deploying an unmanned aerial vehicle, determining the mode of operation of the UAV, operating the UAV in accordance with the mode of operation of the UAV, determining whether a subject has been detected, capturing a first voice sample associated with the subject, authenticating the identity of the subject, and transmitting the GPS location of the unmanned aerial vehicle to a computing device.

Claims

1. An unmanned aerial vehicle, comprising:

a global positioning system receiver configured to determine a first global position of the unmanned aerial vehicle;

a directional control system configured to move the unmanned aerial vehicle;

an imaging device;

a biometric sensing device; and

a processor in communication with the global positioning receiver and the biometric sensing device, wherein the processor is configured to;

capture a first piece of biometric data associated with a monitored subject using the biometric sensing device;

determine whether the first piece of biometric data meets a quality requirement;

in response to the first piece of biometric data not meeting the quality requirement, reposition, using the directional control system, the unmanned aerial vehicle;

responsive to repositioning the unmanned aerial vehicle, capture a second piece of biometric data associated with the monitored subject using the biometric sensing device;

transmit the second piece of biometric data to a computing device;

determine an identity of the monitored subject based on the second piece of biometric data;

in response to determining the identity of the monitored subject;

estimate a second global position of the monitored subject based, at least in part, on the first global position of the unmanned aerial vehicle and an additional data point associated with a characteristic of the imaging device;

continuously update the estimated second global position of the monitored subject; and

continuously transmit the updated second global position to the computing device.

2. The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 1, wherein the biometric sensing device comprises at least one of a camera or a microphone.

3. The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 2, wherein the first piece of biometric data and the second piece of biometric data includes at least one of a voice sample captured by the microphone and a facial image captured by the camera.

4. The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 3, wherein determining the identity comprises the camera capturing at least one of thermos-graphic images, infrared images, night-vision images, and thermal images.

5. The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 4, wherein the camera further automatically magnifies captured images of the monitored subject for identifying the monitored subject.

6. The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 2, wherein the processor is further configured to control the unmanned aerial vehicle to fly according to a pre-programmed auto-pilot path, the pre-programmed auto-pilot path including geographic obstacles.

7. The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 6, wherein the processor is further configured to allow at least one of manual operation of the unmanned aerial vehicle and modification of the pre-programmed auto-pilot path during a flying of the unmanned aerial vehicle according to the pre-programmed auto-pilot path.

8. The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 2, wherein the processor is further configured to determine movements of the monitored subject based on at least one of a camera angle, a camera direction, a camera magnification, a measured voice signal strength, triangulated coordinates based on a position of the unmanned aerial vehicle, geographic features of a surrounding area, digital maps containing an estimated global position of the monitored subject and a current global position of the unmanned aerial vehicle, and sonar pulses.

9. The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 1, wherein determining the identity of the monitored subject is based on the analyzing the first piece of biometric data and the second piece of biometric data.

10. The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to:

determine whether the monitored subject is moving; and

track movements of the monitored subject continuously or at predetermined intervals.

11. The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 10, wherein the second global position is at least one of an estimated global position of the monitored subject and a current global position of the unmanned aerial vehicle.

12. The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 11, wherein the processor is further configured to transmit, to the computing device, an updated global position estimate of the monitored subject based on the tracked movements of the monitored subject.

13. The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 11, wherein the processor is further configured to transmit, to the computing device, an updated current global position of the unmanned aerial vehicle based on the tracked movements of the monitored subject.

14. The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 1, further comprising a noise cancellation system, wherein the noise cancellation system at least attenuates noise generated by the unmanned aerial vehicle.

15. An unmanned aerial vehicle, comprising:

a global positioning system receiver configured to determine a first global position of the unmanned aerial vehicle;

a directional control system configured to move the unmanned aerial vehicle;

an imaging device; and

a processor in communication with the global positioning receiver and the imaging device, wherein the processor is configured to;

capture a first piece of data using the imaging device;

determine whether the first piece of data meets a quality requirement;

in response to the first piece of data not meeting the quality requirement, reposition using the directional control system, the unmanned aerial vehicle;

responsive to repositioning the unmanned aerial vehicle, capture a second piece of data using the imaging device;

transmit the second piece of data to a computing device;

determine an identity of the monitored subject based on the second piece of biometric data;

in response to determining the identity of the monitored subject;

estimate a second global position of the monitored subject based, at least in part, on the first global position of the unmanned aerial vehicle; and

continuously update the estimated second global position of the monitored subject; and

continuously transmit the updated second global position to the computing device.

16. The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 15, further comprising a microphone, wherein at least one of the first piece of data and the second piece of data contains a voice sample.

17. The unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 15, wherein determining the identity of the monitored subject is based on the analyzing the first piece of biometric data and the second piece of biometric data.

18. A method for determining a position of a monitored subject, the method comprising:

capturing a first piece of biometric data associated with the monitored subject;

determining whether the first piece of biometric data meets a quality requirement;

in response to the first piece of biometric data not meeting the quality requirement, repositioning the unmanned aerial vehicle;

responsive to repositioning the unmanned aerial vehicle, capturing a second piece of biometric data associated with the monitored subject;

transmitting the second piece of biometric data to a computing device;

determine an identity of the monitored subject based on the second piece of biometric data;

in response to determining the identity of the monitored subject;

estimating a second global position related to the monitored subject based, at least in part, on the first global position of the unmanned aerial vehicle;

continuously update the estimated second global position of the monitored subject; and

continuously transmitting the updated second global position to the computing device.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the first piece of biometric data and the second piece of biometric data are captured using at least one of a camera and a microphone.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the first piece of biometric data and the second piece of biometric data each includes at least one of a voice sample captured by the microphone and a facial image captured by a camera.