Patent ID: 11971492
Assignee: RTR TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
Field: Measurement (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 13:
14. A method, comprising:
operating a first unmanned aerial vehicle to hover proximate to a first known location;
operating a second unmanned aerial vehicle to hover proximate to a second known location, wherein each of the first unmanned aerial vehicle and the second unmanned aerial vehicle have a transponder mounted thereon; and
operating a range detector comprising a Radio Frequency (RF) transmitter and an RF receiver that utilize different transmit and receive frequencies, wherein the operating of the range detector comprises:
determining first GPS coordinates of the first unmanned aerial vehicle hovering proximate to the first known location;
determining second GPS coordinates of the second unmanned aerial vehicle hovering proximate to the second known location;
for each of the first unmanned aerial vehicle and the second unmanned aerial vehicle:
transmitting, via the RF transmitter, a first RF signal at the transmit frequency;
receiving, via the RF receiver, a second RF signal at the receive frequency from the transponder in response to the first RF signal; and
calculating a distance between the range detector and the transponder based on the first RF signal and the second RF signal; and

calculating a position of the range detector relative to the first known location and the second known location based on the distance calculated between the range detector and the transponder mounted to the first unmanned aerial vehicle, a distance between the first GPS coordinates and the first known location, the distance calculated between the range detector and the transponder mounted to the second unmanned aerial vehicle, a distance between the second GPS coordinates and the second known location, a distance between the first GPS coordinates and the second GPS coordinates, and a distance between the first known location and the second known location.