US Patent Issued to Amazon Technologies on Dec. 30 for "Obstacle detection and localization of aerial vehicles using active or passive sonar" (Romanian, German Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 31 -- United States Patent no. 12,510,663, issued on Dec. 30, was assigned to Amazon Technologies Inc. (Seattle).

"Obstacle detection and localization of aerial vehicles using active or passive sonar" was invented by Valentin Radu (Buchare, Romania), Lorenzo Sorgi (Berlin) and Rada-Amalia Cifor (Cluj-Napoca, Romania).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An aerial vehicle configured for operating within indoor or outdoor spaces is equipped with acoustic sensors for detecting reflections of sound, or echoes, from objects. Distances and bearings to such objects may be calculated based on such echoes. The echoes may be reflections of sound actively emitted by the aerial vehicle, su...