Ford patent details drone landing system for moving vehicles

As reported in past posted, the Ford Motor Co. is busy working on ways to integrate drones for use with its cars, trucks, and vans, with a newly published patent indicating how the automotive giant is looking to facilitate delivery craft landing on moving vehicles.

As often with industrial patents, the Ford application was filed quite a while before its recent publication – in this case all the way back in 2018. First unearthed Friday by the indefatigable Ford Authority site, patent number 11,655,048 B2 issued May 23 lays out a landing system for drones designed for the surfaces of the company’s vehicles – most probably car or truck rooftops.

Read: Ford plans last-mile delivery drones docking in cargo trucks

Diagrams and text in the patent describe a stack of plates intended for drone landings, the top of which features a series of pins extending outward to facilitate the process. The entire system – presumably envisioning use…