Drones are very easy to shoot down, and they get shot down with somewhat alarming frequency. So it's only natural that Amazon, with a drone delivery system taking its very first real-world steps, would be thinking hard about what its drones should do under fire. We won't know for sure until the first incident, but a new patent awarded to Amazon shows where the company's head is at.

The patent, spotted by Motherboard, outlines "Countermeasures for threats to an uncrewed autonomous vehicle." The idea, as laid out in the abstract, is pretty simple. Drones will get information on where they are based not only on their own sensors, but also by readings of other drones. If those two sources don't agree, something is messed up and the alarm bells sound. From the patent:

A first UAV may receive external data from a second UAV using the mesh network. The external data may be used to confirm or cross-check data such as location, heading, altitude, and so forth. Disagreement between data generated by the first UAV with external data from the second UAV may result in the determination that the first UAV is compromised. Remedial actions may be taken, such as the first UAV may be directed to a safe location to land or park, may receive commands from another UAV, and so forth.

The patent lays out a number of possible problems that might be caused by an "adversarial" or "malicious" actor, and the steps the UAV could take, once it has used information from other drones in the mesh to confirm that its operations have been tampered with.

In some scenarios, the troubled drone might recieve an assist from a flying pal with would zoom in and "provide commands or other data to direct the first UAV to a safe landing, parking, docking, and so forth." In others, the affected drone might phone home about its problems, so that "[An] administrative user may plan on how to solve any possible issues that may arise based on the occurrence of a threat that may compromise the UAV."

If a drone were to actually find itself falling out of the sky, it might "deploy a protective device such as an airbag, foam, parachute, bumper, and so forth." And if it were to find itself suddenly under control of a hijacker, the patent allows for the initiation of "a fail-safe mode in which the UAV returns to base or lands on the ground."

For good measure, the patent also includes a diagram of a drone being shot at with a bow and arrow of all things:

These are all scenarios well-worth considering. Falling drones, for whatever the reason, are a real safety hazard. And while most drone-shootings so far are privacy-related, it's easy to imagine how package-hauling drones might make a juicy target for opportunists. Not to mention that if Amazon gets its way, these drones would be flying far out of the line of sight of any operator, and the lack of a nearby human guardian could embolden would-be hackers and thieves to take aggressive action they might not consider if their victim was nearby.

How will Amazon's drones actually act? Who knows. Companies patent ideas they don't use all the time. But something tells me that once Amazon's delivery drones hit the sky in full force, it won't be long until we find out first hand.

Source: USPTO via Motherboard

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