CN113495579A

CN113495579A - Flight control system and method of vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle

Info

Publication number: CN113495579A
Application number: CN202111046462.3A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 魏鹏达
Original assignee: Zhiji Automobile Technology Co Ltd
Current assignee: Zhiji Automobile Technology Co Ltd
Priority date: 2021-09-08
Filing date: 2021-09-08
Publication date: 2021-10-12
Anticipated expiration: 2041-09-08
Also published as: CN113495579B

Abstract

The application provides a flight control system and method of a vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle. The system comprises: the system comprises an unmanned aerial vehicle module and an in-vehicle control module; the unmanned aerial vehicle module comprises an unmanned aerial vehicle and an unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage arranged on the target vehicle; at least 2 rope winches connected with the unmanned aerial vehicle through safety ropes are arranged in the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage; the in-vehicle control module is used for controlling the unmanned aerial vehicle to at least execute the starting and returning operations; in the starting stage of the unmanned aerial vehicle, the rope winch is controlled to release a safety rope with the length larger than the maximum flying height of the unmanned aerial vehicle; the safety rope has no traction force on the unmanned aerial vehicle in the starting stage and the first return stage of the unmanned aerial vehicle; and in the second return stage, the rope winch is controlled to pull the safety rope to pull the unmanned aerial vehicle to land into the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage. The whole flight process of the unmanned aerial vehicle does not need human intervention; rope traction is only involved in the second return flight stage, the flight process and the traction process are not interfered with each other, the control scheme is simple and easy to realize, and the landing precision is high.

Description

Flight control system and method of vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle

Technical Field

The embodiment of the application relates to the technical field of automatic control, in particular to a flight control system and method of a vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle.

Background

With the development of science and technology, the trend of vehicle electronization is stronger and stronger, vehicles have developed from a simple vehicle to a mobile platform, and the application of various electronic technologies also endows the vehicles with various different possibilities. For example, unmanned vehicles are made possible by the rapid advances in diverse sensor technologies, high performance computing platform technologies, and high security control technologies. The development of the field of application of unmanned aerial vehicles, in particular small unmanned aerial vehicles, has also been a sudden leap forward, unmanned aerial vehicles generally known as drones, having been used on a large scale in the civil market. Unmanned aerial vehicle has characteristics such as quick, three-dimensional, carry on variously, generally is used for occasions such as aerial photograph, movie & TV preparation.

The concept of vehicle + drone has been introduced into actual production by many enterprises, but many non-negligible issues are becoming increasingly exposed. Firstly, because the unmanned aerial vehicle has high flying height, long remote control distance and a relatively sharp rotor wing of the unmanned aerial vehicle has certain danger, the use area of the unmanned aerial vehicle is strictly controlled, and a user of the unmanned aerial vehicle needs to be subjected to a strict training process before the unmanned aerial vehicle is used for the first time; moreover, the accuracy of the automatic return landing point of the unmanned aerial vehicle is difficult to reach the satisfactory degree of a user due to the influence of the current GPS positioning accuracy, most unmanned aerial vehicles can land to satisfactory positions only by means of manual assistance when returning to the last five meters, and the operation is complex. Secondly, when the unmanned aerial vehicle is carried to go out, the unmanned aerial vehicle is placed in the vehicle and occupies space; simultaneously, the user all will get off when using unmanned aerial vehicle at present and take out the car with unmanned aerial vehicle, places suitable position and carries out follow-up flight operation again to and the user still need go to the unmanned aerial vehicle landing place and carry out unmanned aerial vehicle's manual recovery.

From this, the unmanned aerial vehicle control system based on-vehicle use scene is developed to let the user just can directly carry out unmanned aerial vehicle flight operation in the car, and artificial intervention degree is low, is the present problem that awaits the solution urgently.

Disclosure of Invention

To the various problems that prior art exists, the aim of this application provides a flight control system and method of on-vehicle unmanned aerial vehicle, can let the user just can directly carry out unmanned aerial vehicle flight operation in the car, and manual intervention degree is low.

In order to achieve the above object, a first embodiment of the present application provides a flight control system of an on-vehicle unmanned aerial vehicle, the system includes: the unmanned aerial vehicle comprises an unmanned aerial vehicle module and an in-vehicle control module communicated with the unmanned aerial vehicle module; the unmanned aerial vehicle module includes: the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage is characterized by comprising at least one unmanned aerial vehicle and an unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage arranged on a target vehicle, wherein the unmanned aerial vehicle is powered by a built-in power supply battery; the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage is internally provided with: at least 2 rope winches configured with position sensors and connected to the drone by a safety rope, wherein the position sensors are configured to detect a release length of the safety rope, and the safety rope is configured to provide a preset pulling force at the second return phase; the in-vehicle control module is used for at least controlling the unmanned aerial vehicle to execute the starting and returning operations; in the starting stage of the unmanned aerial vehicle, the in-vehicle control module controls the rope winch to release a safety rope with the length larger than the maximum flight height of the unmanned aerial vehicle; and the safety rope is right at the unmanned aerial vehicle non-pulling force at the unmanned aerial vehicle first return flight stage the unmanned aerial vehicle second return flight stage the in-vehicle control module controls the rope winch to pull the safety rope with preset torque and speed, so that the safety rope pulls with preset pulling force the unmanned aerial vehicle descends to in the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage the unmanned aerial vehicle descends to and enters when the altitude difference between the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garages is less than the preset threshold value the second return flight stage.

In order to achieve the above object, a second embodiment of the present application provides a flight control method for a vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle, which employs the flight control system for a vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle, and the method includes: when the external environment of the vehicle meets the flight condition of the unmanned aerial vehicle, sending a starting control instruction to the unmanned aerial vehicle and sending a safety rope releasing control instruction to the rope winch through the in-vehicle control module according to a received starting instruction, wherein the in-vehicle control module controls the rope winch to release a safety rope with the length larger than the maximum flight height of the unmanned aerial vehicle in the starting stage of the unmanned aerial vehicle; through in-vehicle control module is according to the received instruction of returning to the air, to unmanned aerial vehicle sends the control command of returning to the air, and unmanned aerial vehicle's the first stage control of returning to the air safety rope is right unmanned aerial vehicle does not have the pulling force unmanned aerial vehicle's the second stage of returning to the air controls rope capstan winch is with predetermined moment of torsion and speed tractive safety rope, so that safety rope is in order to predetermine the pulling force tractive unmanned aerial vehicle lands in the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage, wherein unmanned aerial vehicle descend to with enter when the difference in height between the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage is less than and predetermines the threshold value the second stage of returning to the air.

Compared with the prior art, the flight control system and the flight control method of the vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle can control the unmanned aerial vehicle to automatically take off/return when the vehicle is static or running at low speed, the whole flight process of the unmanned aerial vehicle does not need human intervention, take-off and landing can be finished by one-key operation, and a vehicle driver can concentrate on driving; be provided with the safety rope between unmanned aerial vehicle and the vehicle, even appear unexpected under the extreme condition out of control at unmanned aerial vehicle, can not cause danger to traffic participants such as other pedestrians, vehicles yet, promote unmanned aerial vehicle's security, satisfy vehicle user's user demand, greatly reduced unmanned aerial vehicle's the use degree of difficulty. The stage is regained at unmanned aerial vehicle, the scheme that adopts signal navigation and physics tractive to combine, and the physics tractive is only in the intervention of unmanned aerial vehicle second return flight stage, flight process and tractive process mutual independence, mutual noninterference, make the descending process more accurate safer rapider, promote the accurate ability of returning a voyage of unmanned aerial vehicle, the problem that the setpoint precision of having solved the automatic function of returning a voyage of traditional unmanned aerial vehicle is not enough is solved, control scheme is simple easily to be realized, and the landing precision is high. This application is satisfying the design and use the scene while, through the length setting of safety rope for unmanned aerial vehicle's flying height and flight range are restricted by the strictness, and the forbidden area is little a lot than traditional unmanned aerial vehicle.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application, the drawings that are required to be used in the description of the embodiments will be briefly described below. It is obvious that the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the application, and that for a person skilled in the art, other drawings can be derived from them without inventive effort.

Fig. 1 is a schematic architecture diagram of a flight control system of a vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of an architecture of the vehicle-mounted drone according to the present application;

fig. 3 to 4 are schematic diagrams of different return stages of the flight control system of the vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle according to the present application;

fig. 5 is a schematic view of a working principle of a flight control system of a vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle provided in an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 6 is a schematic flow chart of a flight control method of a vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle according to an embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present application, and it is obvious that the described embodiments are only a part of the embodiments of the present application, and not all of the embodiments. All other embodiments, which can be derived by a person skilled in the art from the embodiments given herein without making any creative effort, shall fall within the protection scope of the present application.

It is noted that the terms "comprises" and "comprising," and variations thereof, as referred to in the specification of the present application, are intended to cover non-exclusive inclusions. The terms "first," "second," and the like are used for distinguishing between similar elements and not necessarily for describing a particular sequential or chronological order, unless otherwise clearly indicated by the context, and it is to be understood that the data so used is interchangeable under appropriate circumstances. In addition, the embodiments and features of the embodiments in the present application may be combined with each other without conflict. Moreover, in the following description, descriptions of well-known structures and techniques are omitted so as to not unnecessarily obscure the concepts of the present application.

Please refer to fig. 1, which is a schematic structural diagram of a flight control system of a vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 1, the flight control system 10 of the vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle described in this embodiment includes an unmanned aerial vehicle module 11 and an in-vehicle control module 12 communicating with the unmanned aerial vehicle module 11.

Specifically, unmanned aerial vehicle module 11 includes: at least one drone 111 and a drone parking garage 112 disposed on the target vehicle 19. The drone 111 is powered by its own built-in power supply battery. The unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage 112 is internally provided with: at least 2 rope winches 113, wherein the rope winches 113 are provided with position sensors (not shown) and are connected with the unmanned aerial vehicle 111 through safety ropes 114. The position sensor is used to detect the released length of the safety line 114; the safety rope 114 is used to provide a preset pulling force during the second return phase of the drone 111, and the safety rope 114 has no pulling force on the drone 111 during the departure phase of the drone 111 and the first return phase of the drone 111. Safety rope 114 in this application can adopt the material that weight is lighter, and its weight can reduce to the 10% of general mooring cable, has greatly reduced the influence to unmanned aerial vehicle's flight gesture. The in-vehicle control module 12 is used for controlling at least the unmanned aerial vehicle 111 to execute the operation of starting and returning. In the starting stage of the unmanned aerial vehicle 111, the in-vehicle control module 12 controls the rope winch 113 to release the safety rope 114 with a length greater than the maximum flying height of the unmanned aerial vehicle 111, and the safety rope 114 has no pulling force on the unmanned aerial vehicle 111; and in first stage of returning voyage safety rope 114 is right unmanned aerial vehicle 111 does not have pulling force second stage of returning voyage, control module 12 control in the car rope capstan 113 is with predetermined moment of torsion and speed tractive safety rope 114, so that safety rope 114 is with the tractive of predetermined pulling force unmanned aerial vehicle 111 descends to in the unmanned aerial vehicle garage of parking 112. And entering the second return flight stage when the unmanned aerial vehicle 111 descends to a position where the height difference between the unmanned aerial vehicle 111 and the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage 112 is smaller than a preset threshold value. That is, in this embodiment, the whole flight process of the unmanned aerial vehicle does not need human intervention, the starting and the returning can be controlled and completed by the in-vehicle control module, the vehicle driver can concentrate on driving, and the cost for the vehicle driver to learn the operation of the unmanned aerial vehicle does not need to be additionally increased; be provided with the safety rope between unmanned aerial vehicle and the target vehicle, when unmanned aerial vehicle returned to navigate and descend to a take the altitude (unmanned aerial vehicle second returns the stage of navigating), adopt the safety rope to carry out the physics tractive, make the decline process more accurate safer rapider, promote the accurate ability of navigating back of unmanned aerial vehicle, solved the automatic not high problem of setpoint precision of the function of navigating back of traditional unmanned aerial vehicle. Because unmanned aerial vehicle has the shooting function concurrently, the flight stable level is very important to using experience. With the flight control capability of the existing civil unmanned aerial vehicle, the unmanned aerial vehicle can be kept stable in the environment of 6-grade wind. Therefore, the unmanned aerial vehicle can be controlled by using the flight control system of the unmanned aerial vehicle during the processes of takeoff, flat flight and descent in the first return flight stage. The additional rope pulling force can lead to increased flight instability factors. And this application safety rope tractive unmanned aerial vehicle's physics tractive is only intervene at the unmanned aerial vehicle second stage of returning a journey, and flight process and tractive process are independent each other, mutual noninterference, and control scheme is simple easily to be realized, and the descending precision is high.

In some embodiments, the unmanned garage 112 is disposed on an exterior roof surface of the target vehicle 19. The drone 111 may land on the roof of the target vehicle 19 through a drone dock garage 112 provided on the outer surface of the roof of the target vehicle 19; that is, the target vehicle 19 may provide a stable stopping point for the drone 111, thereby eliminating the need to provide a dedicated location for the drone 111 to stop. Because the outer surface of the roof of the target vehicle 19 has a large space for utilization, and the target vehicle 19 has a certain height, when the unmanned aerial vehicle 111 takes off and lands from the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage 112 on the outer surface of the roof of the target vehicle 19, the unmanned aerial vehicle can not hurt other surrounding pedestrians, vehicles and other traffic participants in a normal state, so that the application range of the unmanned aerial vehicle is expanded.

In some embodiments, the drone parking garage 112 has a shape to facilitate landing and securing of the drone 111, while securing of the drone 111 while the drone parking garage 112 is parked may be further assisted by a rope winch and a safety rope. The drone dock 112 may further secure the drone 110 by using releasable anchorages (such as snaps, magnetic structures) that may release the drone 111 or secure the drone 111 under control of the in-vehicle control module 12. The position sensor is further used for detecting the release length of the safety rope 114 during the starting stage of the unmanned aerial vehicle so as to assist in calculating the ascending speed of the unmanned aerial vehicle 111; and for detecting the release length of the safety rope 114 to assist in adjusting the take-up speed of the rope winch 113 during different return phases of the drone. Specifically, in a starting stage, the length of a safety rope is counted through a position sensor, the ascending speed of the unmanned aerial vehicle is calculated in an auxiliary mode, and then the ascending speed of the unmanned aerial vehicle is compared with the ascending speed of the unmanned aerial vehicle, so that the working condition of the unmanned aerial vehicle is rechecked, and safety redundancy is improved; at the stage of returning the voyage, the length of calculating safety rope through position sensor can obtain the receipts rope speed of rope capstan winch, and then contrast unmanned aerial vehicle's descent speed, unmanned aerial vehicle and unmanned aerial vehicle park the difference in height between the hangar (be the vector distance between the two change) to judge the stage of returning the voyage, and then realize adjusting the receipts rope speed of rope capstan winch at different stages of returning the voyage, thereby come tractive safety rope with the receipts rope speed of difference.

In some embodiments, an airplane base 115 adapted to the unmanned aerial vehicle 111 and having a wireless charging function is disposed in the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage 112, wherein when the unmanned aerial vehicle 111 lands in the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage 112, the unmanned aerial vehicle 111 and the airplane base 115 are in contact with each other through a contact piece, so that the unmanned aerial vehicle 111 supplies power and supplements energy. That is, the drone 111 is configured to be powered by its own built-in power supply battery (e.g., lithium battery) during flight, and when parked in the drone parking garage 112, power can be obtained through the drone base 115 with wireless charging function, thereby providing cruising ability for the drone 111; and wireless charging mode makes between unmanned aerial vehicle 111 and the aircraft base 115 by the mode power supply benefit ability of contact, and no cable connection consequently can not have the cable to cause the influence and the security is higher to unmanned aerial vehicle 111's flight. In an exemplary embodiment, power may be provided to the drone 110 by a power supply system within the target vehicle 19 (e.g., a motor of the target vehicle 19) via components within the aircraft bed 115 having wireless charging functionality, such as by 12V voltage.

Please refer to fig. 2, which is a schematic diagram of an architecture of the vehicle-mounted drone according to the present application. As shown in fig. 2, the drone 111 is a quad-rotor drone, and the chassis 1110 of the drone 111 is provided with at least 2 safety line anchor points 1112; the cable winch 113 is connected to the safety line anchor 1112 via a safety cable 114. For example, four rotors 1111 of the drone 111 are distributed on the chassis 1110 in a matrix, and safety rope anchors 1112 are respectively arranged at the edge of the chassis 1110 between two rows of rotors 1111. The maximum flight range of the drone 111 relative to the target vehicle 19 may be defined by the length of the safety line 114. During flight of the drone 111, a flight of the drone 111 may be permitted that is slightly less than the actual length of the safety rope 114, so that the flight is not impeded by the safety rope 114; for example, the maximum flying height of the drone 111 may be about 4.5 meters, at which time the rope winch 113 releases about 5.5 meters of the safety rope 114. When the drone 111 is retracted into the drone parking garage 112 by a multiple, the safety rope 114 is tightened by the rope winch 113, so that the rope winch 113 and the safety rope anchor 1112 are tightly connected, and the drone 111 can be further fixed.

In some embodiments, the in-vehicle control module 12 receives a vehicle speed signal, a GPS position signal, a rainfall signal, and a temperature signal of the target vehicle 19 through a bus (not shown), and sends a start control command to the drone 111 and a release safety rope control command to the rope winch 113 according to the received start instruction when it is determined that the external environment of the target vehicle 19 satisfies the flight condition of the drone 111. In some embodiments, an environment sensor (not shown) may also be disposed on the target vehicle 19 for detecting the state of the target vehicle 19 itself (e.g., a vehicle GPS position signal and a vehicle speed signal), and for detecting the state around the target vehicle 19 (e.g., a rainfall signal and a temperature signal around the vehicle). The environmental sensor may include a plurality of number of sensing elements, and may also include a plurality of types of sensing elements; for example, it may be a sensor of the type of light sensor, infrared sensor, radar sensor, position sensor, speed sensor, etc. The departure indication may be issued by a user (e.g., a driver) operating a control device (e.g., a center control screen of the vehicle) having a touch-sensitive display screen disposed in the vehicle. Accordingly, in some embodiments, a signal receiving module (not shown) is further disposed on the unmanned aerial vehicle 111, so as to receive the start and return commands sent by the in-vehicle control module 12, and then perform corresponding operations. The control signal sent by the in-vehicle control module 12 can be used to control the flight attitude of the drone 111, such as the flight direction, the flight speed, the hovering speed (when the target vehicle 19 is in a stopped state), and the like. That is, the takeoff permission of the unmanned aerial vehicle is determined by the flight control system; the flight control system can read various parameters for limiting the takeoff conditions, including external weather, external temperature, wind conditions, the position of a vehicle and the like; these parameters are obtained by various sensors of the vehicle, such as rain sensors, outdoor temperature sensors, vehicle GPS modules, etc. When the flight control system determines that the external environment is appropriate and the vehicle is not in the no-fly zone, the unmanned aerial vehicle can be permitted to take off. Because the takeoff condition of the unmanned aerial vehicle is responsible for by the flight control system, the cost for a vehicle driver to learn the unmanned aerial vehicle control does not need to be additionally increased.

In some embodiments, the environmental sensors may also be configured on the drone 111 for detecting the status of the drone 111 itself (e.g., drone GPS location signal and flight speed signal) and also for detecting the status around the drone 111 (e.g., a rain signal and a temperature signal around the drone). In some embodiments, the drone 111 may also be configured with a flight controller (not shown), the environment sensor and the flight controller are communicably connected to each other, and the flight controller processes a detection signal of the environment sensor to obtain a GPS position signal and a flight speed signal of the drone, or a rainfall signal and a temperature signal around the drone, so as to perform flight control (e.g., flight direction, flight speed, hovering speed, etc.). Of course, the detection signal of the environmental sensor disposed on the drone 111 may also be transmitted to the controller on the target vehicle 19 for processing, so as to send out a control signal through the in-vehicle control module 12 for flight control. In some embodiments, the drone 111 has a GPS module built therein for acquiring the altitude signal of the drone and transmitting it to the in-vehicle control module 12 in real time; the in-vehicle control module 12 further determines the return flight stage of the unmanned aerial vehicle 111 according to the height signal of the unmanned aerial vehicle 111. For example, get into the second stage of returning a journey when unmanned aerial vehicle descends to and the unmanned aerial vehicle parks the difference in height between the hangar and be less than preset threshold value to the control module can control the rope capstan winch in the car and with preset moment of torsion and speed tractive safety rope, so that safety rope falls in the unmanned aerial vehicle parks the hangar with presetting tractive force tractive unmanned aerial vehicle, and control scheme is simple easily to be realized, and returns the whole control process of descending of navigating reliably, and the descending precision is high moreover.

In some embodiments, the in-vehicle control module 12 sends a return control instruction to the unmanned aerial vehicle 111 according to the received return indication; in the first return phase, the in-vehicle control module 12 adjusts the flight speed of the drone 111 to guide the drone 111 to descend by taking the drone parking garage 112 as a return point, and controls the rope winch 113 to retract the safety rope 114 at a first preset torque (for example, at a torque of 1N/m) and a first speed (which is less than the drone descending speed); at this stage the safety line 114 has no pulling force on the drone 111. Specifically, at this stage (stage in which the drone 111 navigates back and the height difference between the drone 111 and the drone parking garage 112 is greater than the preset threshold), the in-vehicle control module 12 obtains the estimated flight speed of the drone 111, and obtains the relative displacement between the drone 111 and the target vehicle 19 according to the estimated flight speed, so as to reduce the height of the drone (i.e., adjust the descent speed of the drone 111) by controlling the blades of the drone to adjust the actual lift of the drone. In some embodiments, the in-vehicle control module 12 may obtain an estimated flight speed of the unmanned aerial vehicle by fusing an optical flow of an image acquired by a camera on the unmanned aerial vehicle with an inertial navigation device, and integrate the estimated flight speed to obtain a relative displacement between the unmanned aerial vehicle and the target vehicle.

In some embodiments, during the second return phase, the in-vehicle control module 12 controls the actual lift of the drone 111 to be less than its maximum lift (e.g., the drone maintains 70% maximum lift), masks the level signal and the obstacle avoidance signal of the drone 111, and controls the rope winch 113 to retract the safety rope 114 at a second preset torque and a second speed (related to the actual lift of the drone 111). That is, at this stage (stage where the drone 111 is returning and the height difference between the drone 111 and the drone garage 112 is less than the preset threshold), the safety rope 114 is retracted, mainly by the rope winch 113, at a second preset torque and at a second speed, so that the safety rope provides a preset pulling force to pull the drone 111 to land into the drone garage 112.

In some embodiments, in the second return phase, the in-vehicle control module 12 respectively controls the lengths of the safety ropes 114 pulled by the corresponding rope winches 113 (the length values are obtained according to the car detection of the position sensors of the rope winches 113), so as to control the body attitude of the unmanned aerial vehicle 111 during the descending process. Preferably, the fuselage attitude is a target elevation angle θ (e.g., 30 ° elevation angle) of the drone 111 from the horizontal. Namely, the lengths of the different safety ropes 114 are independently controlled, so that the elevation angle of the unmanned aerial vehicle 111 is accurately controlled, and the attitude of the unmanned aerial vehicle 111 is ensured to be controllable in the descending process.

Please refer to fig. 3 to fig. 4, wherein fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a first return phase of the flight control system of the vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle of the present application, and fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of a second return phase of the flight control system of the vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle of the present application. In this embodiment, in consideration of the return journey technology and the safety requirement, the return journey process is divided into two stages: a first return journey stage and a second return journey stage. Wherein the maximum flying height of the unmanned aerial vehicle is about 4.5 meters, and the rope winch can release about 5.5 meters of safety rope.

The first return flight phase aims at the rapid descent of the unmanned aerial vehicle: the in-vehicle control module 12 integrates the estimated flight speed of the unmanned aerial vehicle obtained by fusing the optical flow of the image and the inertial navigation device to obtain more accurate relative displacement between the unmanned aerial vehicle and the target vehicle, and adjusts the descending speed of the unmanned aerial vehicle by adjusting the flight speed of the unmanned aerial vehicle; the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage is used as a backspace point to continuously refresh an unmanned aerial vehicle positioning signal and guide the unmanned aerial vehicle to rapidly descend; at this point the rope winch retracts the safety rope with a torque of 1N/m, but the safety rope has no pulling force on the drone, as shown in fig. 3. That is, the first stage of returning voyage is the initiative stage of descending, reduces its height through controlling its lift size of unmanned aerial vehicle paddle adjustment, and current unmanned aerial vehicle technique of returning voyage can be referred to this stage.

And when the unmanned aerial vehicle descends to a position where the height difference between the unmanned aerial vehicle and the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage is smaller than a preset threshold value (for example, 2 meters away from the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage), entering a second return stage. The purpose of the second return flight stage is to finish landing by physically pulling the accurate unmanned aerial vehicle through the safety rope: the unmanned aerial vehicle keeps about 70% of the maximum lift force, and the flight controller shields horizontal signals and obstacle avoidance signals; starting a rope winch in the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage, and withdrawing the safety rope by a torque higher than 1N/m; the unmanned aerial vehicle is pulled by the safety rope and is brought back to the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage. In addition, in the landing process, the elevation angle of the unmanned aerial vehicle is accurately controlled by independently controlling the lengths of different safety ropes, so that the attitude controllability of the unmanned aerial vehicle in the descending process is ensured; that is, the unmanned aerial vehicle maintains the attitude of the fuselage with high front and low back (an elevation angle of about 30 ° from the horizontal plane), as shown in fig. 4. That is, the second return phase is a passive landing phase, the drone maintains 70% of maximum lift (with the aim of maintaining the tightness of the safety rope, thus providing a pulling force); the safety rope is pulled according to the set torque and speed through the rope winch in the descending process, and the unmanned aerial vehicle is pulled to descend. Therefore, the whole descending control process is reliable, and the descending precision is high.

Please refer to fig. 5, which is a schematic diagram of a working principle of a flight control system of a vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 5, the working principle of the flight control system of the vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle is as follows.

(1) A user (such as a driver) controls the unmanned aerial vehicle to enter the flight control system by operating a central control screen of the vehicle, and a starting indication is sent by clicking 'activating the unmanned aerial vehicle' on an interface of the flight control system.

(2) The environment sensor detects the state of the target vehicle itself (e.g., a vehicle GPS position signal and a vehicle speed signal), and detects the state around the target vehicle (e.g., a rainfall signal and a temperature signal around the vehicle).

(3) The in-vehicle control module receives a vehicle speed signal, a GPS position signal, a rainfall signal and a temperature signal through a bus, and controls the unmanned aerial vehicle to carry out unlocking takeoff from an unmanned aerial vehicle parking hangar according to a received takeoff instruction if the external environment meets the flight condition of the unmanned aerial vehicle (environment permission); if the external environment does not meet the flight condition of the unmanned aerial vehicle (environmental early warning), the unmanned aerial vehicle is still prohibited from taking off according to the received starting indication.

(4) When the external environment meets the flight condition of the unmanned aerial vehicle, the corresponding flight key is lightened; the flight key can be an entity key in the flight control system, or a touch control element of the interface of the flight control system, and the like. The flight key is illuminated and the user can press/click the flight key.

(5) The unmanned aerial vehicle takes off the air and can take off at full speed to the height of about 4.5 meters from the roof (namely from the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage), namely the unmanned aerial vehicle takes off automatically and carries out flight shooting operation. At the same time, the rope winch quickly releases the safety rope; the position sensor of the cable winch can finally be used to release the safety cable of approximately 5.5 meters.

(6) The user's accessible is pressed/is clicked and is descended the button, and unmanned aerial vehicle landing is instructed to a key. The landing key can be an entity key in the flight control system, or a touch control element of the interface of the flight control system, and the like. The landing key and the take-off key can be integrated, when the external environment meets the flight condition of the unmanned aerial vehicle, the integrated key is lightened, and the unmanned aerial vehicle can be released to take off by pressing the key; when unmanned aerial vehicle was withdrawed to needs, press the button and can instruct unmanned aerial vehicle to descend by a key.

(7) The drone navigates back and automatically descends at full speed to a height of about 2 meters from the roof (i.e., from the drone dock). Meanwhile, the rope winch slowly recovers the safety rope with small pulling force; the position sensor of the rope winch can finally cause the rope winch to recover about 3 meters of safety rope.

(8) And then the rear rope winch can be started to recover the safety rope, and the front rope winch is started to recover the safety rope, so that the unmanned aerial vehicle keeps the high-front and low-rear body posture (an elevation angle of about 30 degrees with the horizontal plane). Meanwhile, the unmanned aerial vehicle keeps about 70% of the maximum lift force, and shields horizontal signals and obstacle avoidance signals.

(9) The unmanned aerial vehicle is pulled back to the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage, and the landing is completed. Can also further charge for unmanned aerial vehicle through the aircraft base that has the wireless function of charging.

(10) And flight end prompt information can be further displayed on the flight control system to inform a user.

According to the above contents, the flight control system of the vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle provided by the embodiment of the application can realize the automatic starting/returning of the unmanned aerial vehicle when the vehicle is static or running at a low speed, the whole flight process of the unmanned aerial vehicle does not need human intervention, the starting and the landing can be finished by one-key operation, and a vehicle driver can concentrate on driving; be provided with the safety rope between unmanned aerial vehicle and the vehicle, even appear unexpected under the extreme condition out of control at unmanned aerial vehicle, can not cause danger to traffic participants such as other pedestrians, vehicles yet, promote unmanned aerial vehicle's security, satisfy vehicle user's user demand, greatly reduced unmanned aerial vehicle's the use degree of difficulty. The stage is regained at unmanned aerial vehicle, the scheme that adopts signal navigation and physics tractive to combine, and the physics tractive is only in the intervention of unmanned aerial vehicle second return flight stage, flight process and tractive process mutual independence, mutual noninterference, make the descending process more accurate safer rapider, promote the accurate ability of returning a voyage of unmanned aerial vehicle, the problem that the setpoint precision of having solved the automatic function of returning a voyage of traditional unmanned aerial vehicle is not enough is solved, control scheme is simple easily to be realized, and the landing precision is high. This application is satisfying the design and use the scene while, through the length setting of safety rope for unmanned aerial vehicle's flying height and flight range are restricted by the strictness, and the forbidden area is little a lot than traditional unmanned aerial vehicle.

Based on the same invention concept, the application also provides a flight control method of the vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle, and the flight control system of the vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle is adopted.

Please refer to fig. 6, which is a schematic flow chart of a flight control method of a vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 6, the method of this embodiment includes the following steps: s61, when the external environment of the vehicle meets the flight condition of the unmanned aerial vehicle, sending a starting control instruction to the unmanned aerial vehicle and sending a safety rope releasing control instruction to the rope winch through the in-vehicle control module according to a received starting instruction, wherein in the starting stage of the unmanned aerial vehicle, the in-vehicle control module controls the rope winch to release a safety rope with the length larger than the maximum flight height of the unmanned aerial vehicle, and the safety rope has no pulling force on the unmanned aerial vehicle; s62, sending a return flight control instruction to the unmanned aerial vehicle through the in-vehicle control module according to the received return flight instruction, adjusting the flight speed of the unmanned aerial vehicle through the in-vehicle control module in a first return flight stage of the unmanned aerial vehicle, guiding the unmanned aerial vehicle to descend by taking the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage as a return flight point, and controlling the rope winch to withdraw the safety rope at a first preset torque and a first speed, wherein the safety rope has no traction force on the unmanned aerial vehicle; and S63, in the second return stage of the unmanned aerial vehicle, controlling the rope winch to pull the safety rope at preset torque and speed so as to enable the safety rope to pull the unmanned aerial vehicle to land in the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage at preset pulling force, wherein the unmanned aerial vehicle enters the second return stage when the unmanned aerial vehicle descends to a position where the height difference between the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage is smaller than a preset threshold value.

In some embodiments, the step of controlling the rope winch to pull the safety rope at a preset torque and speed during the second return phase in step S63, so that the safety rope pulls the drone to land at a preset pulling force into the drone parking garage further comprises: through control module control in the car the actual lift of unmanned aerial vehicle is less than its maximum lift, shields unmanned aerial vehicle's horizontal signal with keep away the barrier signal, and control the rope capstan winch is predetermine the moment of torsion with the second and is regained with the second speed the safety rope so that the safety rope provides and predetermines pulling force.

It should be noted that the embodiments in the present specification are described in a progressive manner, each embodiment focuses on differences from other embodiments, and the same/similar parts in the embodiments may be referred to each other. For the method embodiment disclosed by the embodiment, since the method embodiment corresponds to the system embodiment disclosed by the embodiment, the description is relatively simple, and the relevant points can be referred to the partial description of the system embodiment.

According to the above contents, the flight control method of the vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle provided by the embodiment of the application can realize that the unmanned aerial vehicle is controlled to automatically take off/return to the air when the vehicle is static or running at a low speed, the whole flight process of the unmanned aerial vehicle does not need human intervention, the taking off and landing can be finished by one-key operation, and a vehicle driver can concentrate on driving; be provided with the safety rope between unmanned aerial vehicle and the vehicle, even appear unexpected under the extreme condition out of control at unmanned aerial vehicle, can not cause danger to traffic participants such as other pedestrians, vehicles yet, promote unmanned aerial vehicle's security, satisfy vehicle user's user demand, greatly reduced unmanned aerial vehicle's the use degree of difficulty. The stage is regained at unmanned aerial vehicle, the scheme that adopts signal navigation and physics tractive to combine, and the physics tractive is only in the intervention of unmanned aerial vehicle second return flight stage, flight process and tractive process mutual independence, mutual noninterference, make the descending process more accurate safer rapider, promote the accurate ability of returning a voyage of unmanned aerial vehicle, the problem that the setpoint precision of having solved the automatic function of returning a voyage of traditional unmanned aerial vehicle is not enough is solved, control scheme is simple easily to be realized, and the landing precision is high. This application is satisfying the design and use the scene while, through the length setting of safety rope for unmanned aerial vehicle's flying height and flight range are restricted by the strictness, and the forbidden area is little a lot than traditional unmanned aerial vehicle.

Those of skill would further appreciate that the various illustrative systems and method steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented as electronic hardware, computer software, or combinations of both, and that the various illustrative components and steps have been described above generally in terms of their functionality in order to clearly illustrate this interchangeability of hardware and software. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the implementation. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present invention. The computer software may be disposed in Random Access Memory (RAM), memory, Read Only Memory (ROM), electrically programmable ROM, electrically erasable programmable ROM, registers, hard disk, a removable disk, a CD-ROM, or any other form of storage medium known in the art.

The above description is only for the specific embodiments of the present application, but the scope of the present application is not limited thereto, and any person skilled in the art can easily conceive of the changes or substitutions within the technical scope of the present application, and shall be covered by the scope of the present application.

Claims

1. A flight control system of an on-vehicle unmanned aerial vehicle, the system comprising: the unmanned aerial vehicle comprises an unmanned aerial vehicle module and an in-vehicle control module communicated with the unmanned aerial vehicle module;

the unmanned aerial vehicle module includes: the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage is characterized by comprising at least one unmanned aerial vehicle and an unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage arranged on a target vehicle, wherein the unmanned aerial vehicle is powered by a built-in power supply battery;

the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage is internally provided with: at least 2 rope winches configured with position sensors and connected to the drone by a safety rope, wherein the position sensors are configured to detect a release length of the safety rope, and the safety rope is configured to provide a preset pulling force at the second return phase;

the in-vehicle control module is used for at least controlling the unmanned aerial vehicle to execute the starting and returning operations;

in the starting stage of the unmanned aerial vehicle, the in-vehicle control module controls the rope winch to release a safety rope with the length larger than the maximum flight height of the unmanned aerial vehicle, and the safety rope has no pulling force on the unmanned aerial vehicle; and the safety rope is right at the unmanned aerial vehicle non-pulling force at the unmanned aerial vehicle first return flight stage the unmanned aerial vehicle second return flight stage the in-vehicle control module controls the rope winch to pull the safety rope with preset torque and speed, so that the safety rope pulls with preset pulling force the unmanned aerial vehicle descends to in the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage the unmanned aerial vehicle descends to and enters when the altitude difference between the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garages is less than the preset threshold value the second return flight stage.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the unmanned garage is disposed on an exterior roof surface of the target vehicle.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the position sensor is further configured to detect a release length of the safety line to assist in calculating a ascent speed of the drone during a takeoff phase of the drone; and the safety rope releasing device is used for detecting the releasing length of the safety rope in different return stages of the unmanned aerial vehicle so as to assist in adjusting the rope winding speed of the rope winch.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein an airplane base with a wireless charging function and adapted to the unmanned aerial vehicle is arranged in the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage, and when the unmanned aerial vehicle lands in the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage, a contact manner of a contact piece is adopted between the unmanned aerial vehicle and the airplane base, so that the unmanned aerial vehicle can supply power and supplement energy.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the drone is a quad-rotor drone, the drone having a chassis with at least 2 safety line anchors disposed thereon; the rope winch is connected with the safety rope anchor point through a safety rope.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the in-vehicle control module receives a vehicle speed signal, a GPS position signal, a rainfall signal and a temperature signal of the target vehicle through a bus, and sends a takeoff control command to the drone and a release safety rope control command to the rope winch according to the received takeoff indication when it is determined that the external environment of the target vehicle satisfies the flight condition of the drone.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the unmanned aerial vehicle is provided with a GPS module inside for acquiring the height signal of the unmanned aerial vehicle and transmitting the height signal to the in-vehicle control module in real time; and the in-vehicle control module further judges the return flight stage of the unmanned aerial vehicle according to the height signal of the unmanned aerial vehicle.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the in-vehicle control module sends a return control instruction to the drone according to the received return indication; in the first return flight stage, the in-vehicle control module adjusts the flight speed of the unmanned aerial vehicle so that the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage guides the unmanned aerial vehicle to descend as a return flight point, and controls the rope winch to withdraw the safety rope at a first preset torque and a first speed.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the in-vehicle control module obtains an estimated airspeed of the drone and obtains a relative displacement of the drone and the target vehicle based on the estimated airspeed to reduce the altitude of the drone by controlling blades of the drone to adjust the actual lift of the drone.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein during the second return phase, the in-vehicle control module controls the actual lift of the drone to be less than its maximum lift, shields the drone's level signal and obstacle avoidance signal, and controls the rope winch to retract the safety rope at a second preset torque and a second speed so that the safety rope provides a preset pulling force.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein during the second return phase, the in-vehicle control module controls the length of the safety rope pulled by the corresponding rope winch respectively to control the fuselage attitude of the unmanned aerial vehicle during descent.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the fuselage attitude is a target elevation angle of the drone from a horizontal plane.

13. A flight control method of a vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle, characterized in that the flight control system of the vehicle-mounted unmanned aerial vehicle of claim 1 is adopted, the method comprising:

when the external environment of the vehicle meets the flight condition of the unmanned aerial vehicle, sending a starting control instruction to the unmanned aerial vehicle and sending a safety rope releasing control instruction to the rope winch through the in-vehicle control module according to a received starting instruction, wherein in the starting stage of the unmanned aerial vehicle, the in-vehicle control module controls the rope winch to release a safety rope with the length larger than the maximum flight height of the unmanned aerial vehicle, and the safety rope has no traction force on the unmanned aerial vehicle;

through in-vehicle control module is according to the received instruction of returning to the air, to unmanned aerial vehicle sends the control command of returning to the air, and unmanned aerial vehicle's the first stage control of returning to the air safety rope is right unmanned aerial vehicle does not have the pulling force unmanned aerial vehicle's the second stage of returning to the air controls rope capstan winch is with predetermined moment of torsion and speed tractive safety rope, so that safety rope is in order to predetermine the pulling force tractive unmanned aerial vehicle lands in the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage, wherein unmanned aerial vehicle descend to with enter when the difference in height between the unmanned aerial vehicle parking garage is less than and predetermines the threshold value the second stage of returning to the air.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

in the first return flight stage, the flight speed of the unmanned aerial vehicle is adjusted by the in-vehicle control module to guide the unmanned aerial vehicle to descend as a return flight point, and the rope winch is controlled to withdraw the safety rope at a first preset torque and a first speed.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the step of controlling the rope winch to pull the safety rope at a preset torque and speed during the second return phase such that the safety rope pulls the drone to land within the drone parking bay at a preset pulling force further comprises: through control module control in the car the actual lift of unmanned aerial vehicle is less than its maximum lift, shields unmanned aerial vehicle's horizontal signal with keep away the barrier signal, and control the rope capstan winch is predetermine the moment of torsion with the second and is regained with the second speed the safety rope so that the safety rope provides and predetermines pulling force.