Patent ID: 9734397
Date: 2017-08-15
CPC Classifications: B64C,B64D,G01C,G05D,G06K,G06T,H04N

Claim:
1. An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) assessment system for imaging a structure and determining a pitch of a roof of a structure, comprising: a site selection user interface to receive an electronic input from a user identifying a geographic location of a structure based on at least one of a street address, a coordinate, and a satellite image; a UAV to receive the geographic location of the structure from the site selection interface, the UAV comprising: a camera to capture images of the structure; a pitch determination system to determine a pitch of a planar surface of the roof that is at an angle relative to a downward direction based on at least two distance measurements; and an imaging system to: adjust a tilt angle of the camera of the UAV to a non-zero angle relative to a downward direction to align an optical axis of the camera perpendicular to the planar surface of the roof of the structure, and capture an image of at least a portion of the roof of the structure with the optical axis of the camera aligned perpendicular to the planar surface at each of the plurality of locations by adjusting a tilt angle of the camera of the UAV based on the determined pitch of the planar surface of the roof.