GPS/Signal Denied Environment What are the benefits of this tech in a GPS/signal denied environment?
The patent states that the drone/fixed camera is given an initial coordinate and this is compared to the topographic map (loaded on a harddrive on the drone?). However, without GPS, how is the initial position known? Does the drone have to take off from a specific set of coordinates known ahead of time and at a specific height to have an accurate x,y, and z cordinate to feed into the algorithm? Once this challenge is overcome, what are the other benefits, since no signal is to be received or sent, does it follow a preprogrammed route to take pictures and measure distances to a target and then returns to a predetermined location for retrieval and analysis? Not very flexible for a war zone, how does this compare to imagery collected by current drones, spy planes and satellites?