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Straight out of science fiction and into British Secretary of State for Defence’s patent portfolio, this drone flies like a dragonfly, “a drone having an elongate fuselage and four wings arranged to provide lift by flapping.” It’s the size of a Corona cigar with a camera on each end, and two wings on each side, and it flies.

The very brief patent text is focused mainly on the cameras, and very little is said about how the flapping wings generate lift. There are no cited prior patents that cover flapping wings. A deeper dive down the rabbit hole revealed nothing.

Claim 1: An aerial reconnaissance drone apparatus comprising: an aerial drone comprising an elongate fuselage and four wings arranged to provide lift by flapping, and first and second cameras having respective square/rectangular fields of view and respective diagonal field of view angles, wherein the first camera is arranged at a front end of the fuselage, pointing forwards, and the second camera is arranged at a rearward end of the fuselage, pointing rearwards, and wherein the second camera has a diagonal field of view angle that is at most half of a diagonal field of view angle of the first camera; and a remote control unit configured to wirelessly transmit instructions to the aerial drone and receive imagery therefrom, wherein the aerial drone is configured to move as instructed and to transmit imagery back, and wherein the remote control unit comprises a user interface comprising a display configured to display such imagery, wherein the remote control unit is arranged to provide a user with an option to switch between two imagery modes, wherein the remote control unit and drone are arranged such that upon selection, the drone rotates as to substantially reverse orientations of the cameras and the display switches from displaying imagery from one camera to displaying imagery from the other camera, and, wherein the second camera has a diagonal field of view width that is at most half that of the first camera.”

Title: “AERIAL RECONNAISSANCE DRONE AND METHOD”
US Patent Application No: 20230227182
Filed (GB Priority): 2020-07-02
Published: 2023-07-20
Applicant: The Secretary of State for Defence

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