How Autonomous Air Taxis Use Hand Gestures and 3D Mapping

A system for operating air taxis that uses hand gestures for control and crowd-sourced 3D mapping to navigate urban environments.

What it covers

This patent describes a method for operating personal air vehicles, specifically focusing on how a passenger interacts with the craft and how the craft perceives its surroundings. It features a propulsion unit that moves between a lift-off position and a lateral flight position to transition from vertical takeoff to forward movement. The system interprets specific hand, palm, or finger gestures captured by internal cameras to issue flight commands. Simultaneously, it builds a 3D map of the airspace by combining sensor data from multiple vehicles and 5G infrastructure, allowing for real-time navigation in a 3D environment.

What it doesn't cover

• —Does not cover voice-activated flight controls or physical joystick-based steering systems.
• —Does not cover ground-based autonomous vehicles that lack the specific propulsion-shifting mechanism described.
• —Does not cover traditional aircraft that rely solely on pre-programmed flight paths without dynamic gesture-based input.
• —Does not cover flight systems that operate without the use of 5G or edge-based processing for mapping.

The clever bit

The patent proposes 'crowd-sourcing' 3D maps from a fleet of air vehicles, effectively turning every taxi into a sensor node that keeps the entire network's map updated in real-time.

Why it matters

As urban air mobility (UAM) moves from concept to reality, the challenge of intuitive vehicle control and shared environmental awareness becomes critical. This patent attempts to solve the 'pilot interface' problem for non-pilots by using natural gestures, while leveraging the 5G network to offload the heavy computational burden of 3D mapping from the vehicle itself.

Real-world examples

• 1.Autonomous electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) air taxis
• 2.Urban air traffic management systems
• 3.5G-enabled edge computing for robotics