Patent ID: 8855846
Filing Date: 2014-10-07
Classification: G01C,G05D

Abstract:
1. An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) comprising: a sensor; a camera; wings having a wingspan of less than twelve feet; a plurality of actuators; a plurality of control surfaces; a digital signal processor (DSP) vision processor; a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) device comprising a softcore decision-making processor; a frame buffer coupled to the DSP vision processor and the FPGA device; means for using the FPGA device to synchronously capture image data from the camera and sensor data from the sensor, wherein the captured image data represents a sequence of images of the UAV's operating environment, and wherein the sensor data represents a current physical state of the UAV; means for using the FPGA to pre-process the captured image data to produce pre-processed image data; and means for buffering the pre-processed image data in the frame buffer; wherein the DSP vision processor comprises means for performing targeting on the pre-processed image data to produce targeting output and performing geo-location on the targeting output to produce geo-location output; wherein the FPGA device comprises means for processing the targeting output to perform target tracking by providing signals to the plurality of actuators; wherein the plurality of actuators comprises means for physically moving the plurality of control surfaces of the UAV in response to the signals; and wherein the means for processing the targeting output comprises means for processing the targeting output and the geo-location output to perform target tracking by providing signals to the plurality of actuators.