Systems and methods for charging unmanned aerial vehicles on a moving platform

1. A platform for operating an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from a vehicle:

(a) the vehicle comprising a landing pad, a landing target on the landing pad, and a charging station, wherein the landing target comprises a visual fiducial to differentiate the landing target from other objects or regions, wherein the visual fiducial dynamically changes in size; and

(b) the UAV comprising:

i. one or more UAV sensors configured to record sensed data, wherein the one or more UAV sensors comprises a vision sensor configured to record sensed image data;

ii. an energy storage device;

iii. a wireless communication device configured to communicate with at least the vehicle; and

iv. a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium encoded with a computer program including instructions executable by a processor to create a UAV charging application comprising:

a) a landing pad recognition module identifying the landing pad based on the sensed data, wherein the identifying comprises applying a computer vision algorithm to the sensed image data comprising image data of the visual fiducial of the landing target, thereby identifying the landing target;

b) a calculation module estimating a real-time state of the landing pad based on the sensed data, the identification of the landing pad, or both;

c) a navigation module controlling the UAV to:

(i) land on the landing pad based on the real-time state, the sensed data, or both; and

(ii) take off from the landing pad; and

d) an energy module initiating and ceasing charging of the energy storage device via the charging station.

2. The platform of claim 1 , wherein the one or more UAV sensors further comprise a location sensor, an inertial sensor, an altitude sensor, a pressure sensor, an audio sensor, a field sensor, or any combination thereof.

3. The platform of claim 1 , wherein the real-time state of the landing pad comprises a position, a velocity, an acceleration, an orientation, or any combination thereof.

4. The platform of claim 1 , wherein the visual fiducial comprises masked information.

5. The platform of claim 1 , wherein a size the visual fiducial changes dynamically during UAV landing.

6. The platform of claim 1 , wherein the visual fiducial that dynamically changes in size remains within a field of view of the UAV when landing.

7. The platform of claim 1 , wherein the visual fiducial that dynamically changes in size is projected on or near the platform.

8. The platform of claim 1 , wherein the wireless communication device is configured to communicate at least one of a position, a motion, a velocity, an acceleration, and an orientation of the UAV to the landing pad, via the wireless communication device.

9. The platform of claim 8 , wherein the UAV charging application further comprises a status module receiving at least one of the position, the motion, the velocity, the acceleration, and the orientation of the UAV to the landing pad.

10. The platform of claim 1 , wherein the UAV charging application further comprises a tracking module tracking the landing target on the landing pad.

11. The platform of claim 1 , wherein the landing pad further comprises a wireless communication unit configured to communicate with a remote control system.

12. The platform of claim 1 , wherein the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprises a low-size, weight, and power (low-SWaP) embedded processor.

13. The platform of claim 1 , wherein the vehicle further comprises a reversible mechanical interface configured to secure the UAV to the landing pad.

14. The platform of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the navigation module controlling the UAV to take off and the navigation module controlling the UAV to land comprises controlling the UAV to move in a direction substantially vertical to the landing pad within a distance to the landing pad.

15. The platform of claim 1 , wherein the visual fiducial that dynamically changes in size is within a field of view of the UAV when a relative position of the UAV to the landing target changes during landing of the UAV on the landing pad.