ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,330,806, issued on June 17, was assigned to Rockwell Collins Inc. (Cedar Rapids, Iowa).
"Landing zone designators" was invented by Michael J. Krenz (Roscoe, Ill.) and Stephen Tongue (Hampden, Mass.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A landing zone designator system includes two sets of antennas; the first set of antennas defines a first vertical lobe at a first known orientation to the landing pad and the second set of antennas defines a second vertical lobe at a second known orientation to the landing pad. A VTOL aircraft including two antennas tracks the vertical lobes to align the aircraft to the center of the landing pad. The aircraft an...