07 Mar Using a nearby drone
Linket Corp. was told by the US government that its founder will get a drone patent. It received a Notice of Allowance for “Drone interacting with a stranger having a cellphone“. The patent will issue by mid May 2020.
Why this Matters
Drones are well known to the public, but few have heard of Linket. The patent lets us play in a very popular field.
First we say what the patent is NOT about. It is not about a person using her phone to go to a website or app and calling a drone to her. Where the drone might be delivering some physical item she bought. There has been much good work already done in this area. By now it is well built up and indeed perhaps predictable.
Instead we have a different scenario. Suppose you are out in some public area and you have your cellphone. A drone approaches but you did not summon it. You wonder perhaps if you could rent it. The patent foresees a future business model of drone rental where a drone cruises around and lets someone rent it. The figure shows a user Bob standing in the open with his phone, near a drone. Jill is controlling the drone at some distance. Or maybe she is out of line of sight. Or instead of Jill, the control could be fully automated.
But what if someone rents it and then wants to grab and keep it? The drone has built in commands to keep it out of the hands of the user. And to prevent the user from deliberately smashing the drone into something. Today’s drones now often have anti-collision mechanisms, so this is not a stretch. A second answer is that the rise of electric scooters for rent suggests that letting the drone be lowered so that the user can grasp it may be feasible.
If Bob wants to rent the drone, he can raise his arm, holding his phone. The drone has image recognition software that detects his profile. His phone screen can show a signal like a QR code. The drone uses its camera to decode and get his contact information.
Blimp and drones
Another scenario is where a blimp is used with drones. In the US blimps often appear at major sporting events. A blimp could be a platform to launch drones and to let them recharge. So drones do not need to travel a long distance to recharge. A blimp might have a large electronic screen on its side. This can show images taken by a drone. For example, a drone could image a user controlling it. The image could be relayed to the blimp which then shows it. This acts to publicise the user, giving incentive for her to rent the drone.
The combination of blimp and drones can disseminate the downloading of an app. The app need not be for the controlling of drones. It might be for some other purpose. But at an event with many people, when a user interacts with a drone and downloads an app, this helps the app stand out against all the other apps in an app store.
One variant is where the blimp acts as the source of the app being downloaded. This can reduce the time to download. The blimp can have the necessary wireless servers for downloading.
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21 April 2020
Tue US Patent and Trademark Office issued the patent right on schedule.
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