ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,307,774, issued on May 20, was assigned to SONY GROUP Corp. (Tokyo).

"Crewless aircraft and control method" was invented by Xi Chen (Tokyo).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present disclosure relates to a crewless aircraft that enable safe interaction with a recognition target. The crewless aircraft includes a state estimation unit that estimates, based on at least one of a camera image shot of the recognition target by a camera or a drive signal of a motor for a flying operation, a state of the recognition target, and an action determination unit that determines an action of the crewless aircraft based on the estimated state of the rec...