Patent Application
20220288757
The present disclosure relates to systems for breaking glass with autonomous security vehicles including drones.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs, commonly known as drones) generally originated in military applications. Today their use has proliferated to many more applications including aerial photography, product deliveries, agriculture, policing and surveillance, infrastructure inspections, science, racing, etc. Ground based robots and remote-controlled vehicles have also been used in policing and security applications. Conventionally, in policing applications it may become necessary for a robot to forcibly enter a building or other structure. Such robots have been known to use rams or ramming motions in order to break through a door, wall, or window.
Various disclosed embodiments include cover assemblies for an electrical busbar connection, busbar connector assemblies, and battery systems.
In some embodiments, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) includes a UAV frame; and a propulsion system coupled to the UAV frame and configured to cause the vehicle to be airborne. The UAV also includes a control system configured to control the flight of the vehicle and a glass breaker coupled to the UAV frame.
In other embodiments, an unmanned vehicle includes a frame, a propulsion system coupled to the frame and configured to cause the vehicle to move, and a control system configured to control the movement of the vehicle, and a glass breaker coupled to the frame.
In yet other embodiments, a method of breaking a glass pane includes causing a drone aircraft to fly in front of the glass pane and starting a motor which rotates a rotary glass breaking structure on the end of a boom coupled to the drone aircraft. The method also includes causing the drone aircraft to contact the rotating rotary glass breaking structure with the glass pane and causing the drone aircraft to withdraw away from the glass pane.
The foregoing summary is illustrative only and is not intended to be in any way limiting. In addition to the illustrative aspects, embodiments, and features described above, further aspects, embodiments, and features will become apparent by reference to the drawings and the following detailed description.
Illustrative embodiments are illustrated in referenced figures of the drawings. It is intended that the embodiments and figures disclosed herein are to be considered illustrative rather than restrictive.
In the following detailed description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof. In the drawings, similar symbols typically identify similar components, unless context dictates otherwise. The illustrative embodiments described in the detailed description, drawings, and claims are not meant to be limiting. Other embodiments may be utilized, and other changes may be made, without departing from the spirit or scope of the subject matter presented here.
Referring now to
In accordance with an illustrative embodiment when it is needed for a glass pane to be broken, for example in a policing action where forced entry is necessitated, drone aircraft 100 is controlled to fly in front of the glass pane. In some examples, the UAV may be controlled to fly near the top of the glass pane such that when the glass breaks most of the glass will not hit the UAV potentially causing damage to the UAV. As UAV 100 approaches glass pane 110 the motor 135 is started to rotate the rotary glass breaker 150 on the end of the boom 130 coupled to the drone aircraft 100. The UAV is then controlled to cause the drone aircraft to contact the rotating rotary glass breaker with the glass pane at a point 200 as depicted in
Referring now to
Referring to
In accordance with illustrative embodiments, sensors may be supported on frame 140, such as but not limited to camera 180 as well as other types of sensors e.g., radar, lidar, infrared, ultrasonic, acoustic, etc. Sensors 180 may help determine the properties of the glass and help dictate controlling UAV 100 to break the glass pane 110.
In accordance with illustrative embodiments, the glass breaker may be a component that is attachable to a drone, a robot, a manned vehicle, an exoskeleton, etc. Accordingly, the glass breaker may include a support structure like arm 130 that includes structure for attaching to another structure, e.g., screws or bolts 500. The glass breaker further includes a motor and a structure to provide power to the motor, which may be via wiring to the vehicles power or through a battery coupled to the arm 130. Such an attachable component may be made to attach to a variety of structures or to a variety of aircraft.
The mechanical construction shown and described may be varied without departing from the scope of the invention as clearly defined by the claims.
In some instances, one or more components may be referred to herein as “configured to,” “configured by,” “configurable to,” “operable/operative to,” “adapted/adaptable,” “able to,” “conformable/conformed to,” etc. Those skilled in the art will recognize that such terms (e.g., “configured to”) generally encompass active-state components and/or inactive-state components and/or standby-state components, unless context requires otherwise.
While particular aspects of the present subject matter described herein have been shown and described, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that, based upon the teachings herein, changes and modifications may be made without departing from the subject matter described herein and its broader aspects and, therefore, the appended claims are to encompass within their scope all such changes and modifications as are within the true spirit and scope of the subject matter described herein. It will be understood by those within the art that, in general, terms used herein, and especially in the appended claims (e.g., bodies of the appended claims) are generally intended as “open” terms (e.g., the term “including” should be interpreted as “including but not limited to,” the term “having” should be interpreted as “having at least,” the term “includes” should be interpreted as “includes but is not limited to,” etc.). It will be further understood by those within the art that if a specific number of an introduced claim recitation is intended, such an intent will be explicitly recited in the claim, and in the absence of such recitation no such intent is present. For example, as an aid to understanding, the following appended claims may contain usage of the introductory phrases “at least one” and “one or more” to introduce claim recitations. However, the use of such phrases should not be construed to imply that the introduction of a claim recitation by the indefinite articles “a” or “an” limits any particular claim containing such introduced claim recitation to claims containing only one such recitation, even when the same claim includes the introductory phrases “one or more” or “at least one” and indefinite articles such as “a” or “an” (e.g., “a” and/or “an” should typically be interpreted to mean “at least one” or “one or more”); the same holds true for the use of definite articles used to introduce claim recitations. In addition, even if a specific number of an introduced claim recitation is explicitly recited, those skilled in the art will recognize that such recitation should typically be interpreted to mean at least the recited number (e.g., the bare recitation of “two recitations,” without other modifiers, typically means at least two recitations, or two or more recitations). Furthermore, in those instances where a convention analogous to “at least one of A, B, and C, etc.” is used, in general such a construction is intended in the sense one having skill in the art would understand the convention (e.g., “a system having at least one of A, B, and C” would include but not be limited to systems that have A alone, B alone, C alone, A and B together, A and C together, B and C together, and/or A, B, and C together, etc.). It will be further understood by those within the art that typically a disjunctive word and/or phrase presenting two or more alternative terms, whether in the description, claims, or drawings, should be understood to contemplate the possibilities of including one of the terms, either of the terms, or both terms unless context dictates otherwise. For example, the phrase “A or B” will be typically understood to include the possibilities of “A” or “B” or “A and B.”
With respect to the appended claims, those skilled in the art will appreciate that recited operations therein may generally be performed in any order. Also, although various operational flows are presented in a sequence(s), it should be understood that the various operations may be performed in other orders than those which are illustrated or may be performed concurrently. Examples of such alternate orderings may include overlapping, interleaved, interrupted, reordered, incremental, preparatory, supplemental, simultaneous, reverse, or other variant orderings, unless context dictates otherwise. Furthermore, terms like “responsive to,” “related to,” or other past-tense adjectives are generally not intended to exclude such variants, unless context dictates otherwise.
While the disclosed subject matter has been described in terms of illustrative embodiments, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various modifications can be made thereto without departing from the scope of the claimed subject matter as set forth in the claims.
