{
  "patent_number": "US 11490056",
  "country": "US",
  "title": "How a Drone Automatically Films a Moving Car Like a Movie Crew",
  "original_title": "Drone system and method of capturing image of vehicle by drone",
  "summary": "This patent describes a system where a drone automatically films a moving vehicle by receiving real-time vehicle data, predicting its future path, and then flying a pre-planned \"movie script\" of camera shots relative to the car.",
  "what_it_does": "The patent describes a drone system that automatically captures video of a vehicle. The vehicle sends its current information, like speed, acceleration, braking, and steering data (Claim 5), to the drone. The drone's controller receives this data and uses it to predict where the vehicle will be in the future (Claim 1). The drone also stores a \"scene information database\" (Claim 1), which is like a pre-written movie script. This database contains a series of scenes, each specifying a desired camera position and angle relative to the vehicle, and how long that shot should last. Based on the predicted vehicle path and the movie script, the drone calculates its own flight path to achieve each relative shot (Claim 1). It then flies autonomously and adjusts its camera direction and angle to capture the video, even sending the footage back to the vehicle in real-time (Claim 6). For example, a car driving through a scenic route could have a drone automatically film it from various angles, like a side-tracking shot followed by an overhead view, all pre-programmed and executed autonomously.",
  "what_it_does_not_cover": [
    "Does not cover drones that are manually controlled by a human operator.",
    "Does not cover drones that only follow a vehicle without using a pre-defined \"scene information database\" for specific shots.",
    "Does not cover drones that predict a vehicle's path without receiving real-time traveling and navigation information directly from the vehicle.",
    "Does not cover systems where the drone's camera adjustments are not based on both the stored relative positions and the live captured image.",
    "Does not cover drones that simply record a continuous, unscripted video without calculating specific flight paths for a series of defined scenes."
  ],
  "filed": "2021-01-11",
  "granted": "2022-11-01",
  "expires": "2041-01-11",
  "status": "active",
  "holder": "Toyota Motor",
  "holder_url": "https://patentbrief.org/company/toyota-motor",
  "inventors": [
    {
      "name": "Takashi Nishimoto",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/takashi-nishimoto"
    },
    {
      "name": "Kei Yamamoto",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/kei-yamamoto"
    },
    {
      "name": "Kenji Sato",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/kenji-sato"
    }
  ],
  "times_cited": 3,
  "tags": [
    "automotive",
    "consumer_electronics",
    "software",
    "telecommunications",
    "robotics",
    "ai_ml"
  ],
  "abstract": "A controller of a drone includes a storage unit that stores a scene information database containing a plurality of scene information sets arranged in time series of a video, in each of the scene information sets, a relative position with respect to a vehicle in capturing a scene of the video and a duration of the scene are associated with each other, a vehicle information acquisition unit that receives vehicle information from the vehicle, a traveling position estimation unit that estimates a future traveling position of the vehicle based on the vehicle information, and a flight path calculation unit that, based on the estimated traveling position and the scene information database, calculates, for each of the scenes, a flight path that passes through the relative position with respect to the vehicle.",
  "url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/11490056/drone-system-and-method-of-capturing-image-of-vehicle-by-drone",
  "markdown_url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/11490056/drone-system-and-method-of-capturing-image-of-vehicle-by-drone/md",
  "google_patents_url": "https://patents.google.com/patent/US11490056",
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}