Patent · US Active

Method of ultrasound telemetry for drones, with discrimination of spurious echoes emanating from another drone

US8599646B2 · kind B2 · utility

9Cited by
3References
9Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventor

Key dates

Filing dateJun 17, 2010
Grant dateDec 3, 2013
Priority date
Expiry dateAug 16, 2030

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG01S15/88
  • WIPO fieldMeasurement
  • WIPO sectorInstruments

Abstract

The method comprises: a) the emission of an ultrasound burst repeated at a predetermined recurrence frequency; and b) after each emission and for the duration of a time frame (n−1, n, n+1, . . . ) separating two consecutive emissions, the reception of a plurality of successive signal spikes appearing in the course of the same frame. These spikes include spurious spikes (E′n−1, E′n, E′n+1, . . . ) originating from the emitter of another drone, and a useful spike (En−1, En, En+1, . . . ) corresponding to the distance to be estimated. To discriminate these spikes, the following steps are executed: c) for two consecutive frames, comparison of the instants of arrival of the p spikes of the current frame with the instants of arrival of the q spikes of the previous frame and determination, for each of the p.q pairs of spikes, of a corresponding relative time gap; d) application to the p.q gaps determined in step c) of a selection criterion making it possible to retain just a single spike of the current frame; and e) estimation of the distance as a function of the instant of arrival of the spike thus retained.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.