ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,256,172, issued on March 18, was assigned to BOOZ ALLEN HAMILTON INC. (McLean, Va.).

"Advanced manufacturing technologies and machine learning in unmanned aviation systems" was invented by Jason Sebastian (Madison, Ala.), Robyn Kincade (Athens, Ala.), Catherine Henderson (Madison, Ala.), Bradley Evans (Huntsville, Ala.), Jacques Davignon (Atlanta), Ryan Fernandez (Huntsville, Ala.) and Jeff Dowell (Huntsville, Ala.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A vehicle can be configured to include a body having a body bottom conjoined with a body sidewall and a body top forming a body cavity. The body top includes a body top opening and the body side...