It happens to everyone. You park your car in a hurry and walk into the store only to realize when you leave the store you have no idea where your car is parked. The parking lot is crowded; there is no distinguishable marker by which you remember parking, and frustration sets in. Thanks to voice-activated technology being developed by Amazon and represented in U.S. Patent No. 9,471,059, entitled UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE ASSISTANT, one can simply say “locate car” and a tiny drone that is perched on your shoulder or somewhere close by will take off and locate your car.
This small drone, depicted as small enough to perch on a police officer’s radio, uses a technology that is described as an assistant that can act as the “eyes and/or
ears, among other things, for the user to extend the user’s perception.” The drone can accept many commands in different forms such as voice commands through a microphone, signals from an app, computer or internet application.
The patent filing details the drone to be helpful in situations “in which a user may wish to review the situation from afar. This may be because the user needs a different vantage point (e.g., to see over a crowd), because the situation is dangerous (e.g., a foxhole or an underground tunnel during a military maneuver), or because the user simply can’t find their car in a crowded parking lot.”
The patent filing further details situations in which the drone would be helpful. Parents, for instance, could use the drone to locate their child if he or she should go missing. The user would simply say “find Timmy” and the drone would be able to scan large crowds or areas for the child who would have a RFID tag sewn into their clothes or a bar code printed on their clothes.
First responders would also greatly benefit from the use of the drone. Police could use the drone as an aerial dashcam providing a different point of view/angle for them. The drone could be used when officers pull someone over; it could fly around the car taking pictures of the vehicle and the vehicle’s occupants. It could also be used in a high-speed chase to take a picture of the driver of the car while reducing the risk of an officer driving at high speeds. Firefighters could benefit as the drone could identify people trapped in a burning building or to keep an eye out to make sure flare-ups after a fire are contained.
Although Amazon has not confirmed if they will manufacture this particular technology, it will be interesting to see how this technology develops.