Mobile aerial drone early warning privacy breach detect, intercept, and defend systems and methods

{
  "publication_number": "US2020111374A1",
  "country": "US",
  "kind": "A1",
  "title": "Mobile aerial drone early warning privacy breach detect, intercept, and defend systems and methods",
  "abstract": "Systems and methods for aerial unmanned vehicle (for example, drone) early warning privacy breach detection, interception, and defense are disclosed. The system detects drones within a threshold distance of an individual or configurable location, notifies the individual of the drones' existence, tracks the drones, and executes countermeasures. The system can communicate with telecommunication networks or other sources (for example, FAA) to identify and filter out drones that are authorized to be in the airspace around the individual.",
  "claims": [
    "1. A system for detecting, intercepting, and defending against privacy breaches carried out by drones, the system comprising: a detection and location module that: detects an existence of at least one drone within a vicinity of at least one user device; and determines an initial location of the at least one drone; a notification module that, when an initial location of the at least one drone is determined within a configurable vicinity range of the at least one user device, sends an alert or notification to a user associated with the at least one user device; a tracking module that, when an initial location of the at least one drone is determined within the configurable vicinity range of the at least one user device, tracks location changes of the at least one drone; and a countermeasures module that executes at least one privacy breach countermeasure against the at least one drone. 2. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one user device is one or more of: a mobile device, a smart device, an Internet of Things device, or a security device. 3. The system of claim 1 wherein the detection and location module determines the existence and the initial location of the at least one drone using three-dimensional sound localization techniques. 4. The system of claim 1 wherein the detection and location module determines the existence of the at least one drone by analyzing on one or more of the following attributes of the at least one drone: sound frequencies emitted by the at least one drone, electromagnetic signals emitted by the at least one drone, visible light emitted by the at least one drone, thermal indicators emitted by the at least one drone, images captured of the at least one drone, unique identification code associated with the at least one drone, or any combination thereof. 5. The system of claim 4 wherein, the detection and location module identifies a type of the at least one drone based on the one or more analyzed attributes of the at least one drone, and the at least one privacy breach countermeasure executed against the at least one drone is based on the identified type of the at least one drone. 6. The system of claim 1 wherein the detection and location module determines the existence of the at least one drone by: sending a request to a telecommunications carrier for information about drones tracked by or associated with the telecommunications carrier; and upon receiving the information from the telecommunications carrier, analyzing the information to determine whether the drones associated with the telecommunications carrier are within the vicinity of the at least one user device, wherein the received information comprises location information for at least a subset of the drones associated with the telecommunications carrier. 7. The system of claim 1 wherein the detection and location module: accesses a data storage location to determine information about one or more authorized aerial entities, wherein the one or more authorized aerial entities are authorized to be within the vicinity of the at least one user device, and wherein the at least one drone detected within the vicinity of the at least one user device is not the one or more authorized aerial entities. 8. The system of claim 1 wherein the tracking module tracks the location changes of the at least one drone by keeping the at least one drone within at least one camera lens view of the at least one user device. 9. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one privacy breach countermeasure against the at least one drone comprises: transmitting light-emitting diode signals, transmitting laser signals, transmitting audio signals, transmitting thermal signals, notifying the user associated with the user device, disabling one or more features of the at least one drone, deploying at least one counter-drone, or any combination thereof. 10. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one privacy breach countermeasure is executed by a device other than the at least one user device. 11. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one privacy breach countermeasure is executed for a configurable time period. 12. A method executed by a mobile application for detecting drones, the method comprising: detecting an existence of at least one drone within a vicinity of at least one user device or a location selected by a user; determining an initial location of the at least one drone; upon determining the initial location of the at least one drone within a configurable vicinity range of the at least one user device or the location selected by the user: sending a notification to the at least one user device; and executing at least one countermeasure against the at least one drone. 13. The method of claim 12 wherein the location selected by the user is different from a current location of the user. 14. The method of claim 12 wherein the existence of the at least one drone is detected by analyzing on one or more of the following attributes of the at least one drone: frequencies emitted by the at least one drone, signals emitted by the at least one drone, light emitted by the at least one drone, thermal indicators emitted by the at least one drone, images captured of the at least one drone, unique identification code associated with the at least one drone, or any combination thereof. 15. The method of claim 12 wherein the existence of the at least one drone is detected at least in part by: sending a request to a telecommunications carrier for information about drones associated with the telecommunications carrier; and upon receiving the information from the telecommunications carrier, analyzing the information to determine whether the drones associated with the telecommunications carrier are within the vicinity of the at least one user device, wherein the received information comprises location information for at least a subset of the drones associated with the telecommunications carrier. 16. The method of claim 12 further comprising: accessing a data storage location to determine information about one or more authorized aerial entities, wherein the one or more authorized aerial entities are authorized to be within the vicinity of the at least one user device, and wherein the at least one drone detected within the vicinity of the at least one user device is not the one or more authorized aerial entities. 17. The method of claim 12, further comprising tracking location changes of the at least one drone, and wherein the location changes of the at least one drone are tracked by keeping the at least one drone within at least one camera lens view of the at least one user device. 18. The method of claim 12 wherein the at least one countermeasure against the at least one drone comprises: transmitting light-emitting diode signals, transmitting laser signals, transmitting audio signals, transmitting thermal signals, notifying the user associated with the user device, disabling one or more features of the at least one drone, deploying at least one counter-drone, or any combination thereof. 19. At least one computer-readable memory carrying instructions to be executed by at least one processor, wherein the instructions are for performing a method of defending against privacy breaches carried out by unmanned aerial vehicles, the method comprising: detecting an existence of at least one unmanned aerial vehicle within a vicinity of at least one user device or a selected location determined by a user; determining an initial location of the at least one unmanned aerial vehicle; upon determining the initial location of the at least one unmanned aerial vehicle within a configurable vicinity range of the at least one user device or the selected location: sending an alert to the user associated with the at least one user device; and tracking location changes of the at least one drone; and initiating execution of at least one privacy breach countermeasure against the at least one unmanned aerial vehicle. 20. The computer-readable memory of claim 19 wherein the existence of the at least one unmanned aerial vehicle is detected at least in part by: sending a request to a telecommunications carrier for information about unmanned aerial vehicles tracked by or associated with the telecommunications carrier; and upon receiving the information from the telecommunications carrier, analyzing the information to determine whether the unmanned aerial vehicles associated with the telecommunications carrier are within the vicinity of the at least one user device, wherein the received information comprises location information for at least a subset of the unmanned aerial vehicles tracked by or associated with the telecommunications carrier."
  ],
  "description_excerpt": "Experts estimate that by the end of 2018, 3.5 million drones would have been sold in the United States. A primary concern of this exponential growth of drones is their potential use by individuals to invade the privacy of others. For instance, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has collected over 6,000 reports of potentially unsafe use of drones so far. As drones become more affordable, smaller in size, and less noticeable in the airspace, privacy concerns become increasingly prevalent. While current federal regulations require that unmanned vehicles remain below 400 feet, they mainly regulate such matters by regulating the qualifications for operators and the precise systems for keeping track of the unmanned vehicles in flight. Certain states have passed laws that address privacy concerns by holding drone operators violating an individual's privacy to be trespassers. But, currently no systems or methods exist for individuals to affirmatively protect their privacy.\n\nFIG. 1 illustrates an example of an environment in which some implementations of the present technology can be utilized.\n\nFIG. 2 illustrates a set of components of a drone privacy breach defense system according to various implementations.\n\nFIG. 3 illustrates a set of components within a drone according to various implementations.\n\nFIG. 4 illustrates a set of components within a mobile device with a drone management application according to various implementations.\n\nFIGS. 5A-5B are flow diagrams illustrating a set of operations for detecting, intercepting, and defending against drones according to various implementations.",
  "cpc": [
    "G08G 5/0082",
    "B64C 39/024",
    "B64U 2101/16",
    "B64U 2101/30",
    "G08G 5/0026",
    "G08G 5/22",
    "G08G 5/26",
    "G08G 5/55",
    "G08G 5/57",
    "G08G 5/58",
    "G08G 5/59",
    "G08G 5/727",
    "H04W 4/02",
    "H04W 4/029",
    "H04W 4/21",
    "H04W 4/40",
    "H04W 4/70",
    "H04W 4/80"
  ],
  "ipc": [
    "B64C 39/02",
    "G08G 5/00",
    "H04W 4/029",
    "H04W 4/40",
    "G05D 1/00",
    "G05D 3/00",
    "G06F 17/00",
    "G06F 7/00"
  ],
  "assignees": [
    "T Mobile USA Inc"
  ],
  "inventors": [
    "Eric Yocam",
    "Damon Laursen"
  ],
  "filing_date": "2018-10-03",
  "publication_date": "2020-04-09",
  "priority_date": "2018-10-03",
  "application_number": "US-201816151258-A",
  "family_id": "70051755",
  "cited_by_count": 20
}