Apparatus and method for centralized control of vehicles

• US 10,191,485 B2
• Filed: 07/11/2017
• Issued: 01/29/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/24/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Flytrex Aviation Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Flytrex Aviation Ltd.
• Inventors: Bash, Yariv, Regev, Amit
• Primary Examiner(s): Ismail, Mahmoud S
• Application Number:
  US15/646,729
• Publication Number:
  US 20170308081A1
• Time in Patent Office: 567 Days
• Field of Search: 701 2, 701 15
• CPC Class Codes: B64C 39/024 of the remote controlled vehicle type, i.e. RPV
• CPC Class Codes: B64U 2101/60 for transporting passengers; for transporting goods other than weapons
• CPC Class Codes: B64U 2101/61 for transporting passengers
• CPC Class Codes: B64U 2101/64 for parcel delivery or retrieval
• CPC Class Codes: B64U 2201/20 Remote controls
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0027 involving a plurality of vehicles, e.g. fleet or convoy travelling fleet control of land vehicles from a control room G05D1/0297; traffic control systems for road vehicles G08G1/00; for marine craft G08G3/00; for aircraft G08G5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0061 for transition from automatic pilot to manual pilot and vice versa
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0094 involving pointing a payload, e.g. camera, weapon, sensor, towards a fixed or moving target
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0832 Special goods or special handling procedures, e.g. handling of hazardous or fragile goods
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0013 with a ground station
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0034 Assembly of a flight plan
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0043 Traffic management of multiple aircrafts from the ground G08G5/003 takes precedence; data processing specially designed for resource management, e.g. scheduling or allocating time, human or machine resources G06Q10/06
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0069 specially adapted for an unmanned aircraft
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0082 for monitoring traffic from a ground station radar or analogous systems specially adapted for traffic control G01S13/91

Abstract

An apparatus and method for centralized control of a vehicle. The apparatus includes: a processing circuitry; and a memory, the memory containing instructions that, when executed by the processing circuitry, configure the apparatus to: establish control of at least one vehicle, wherein establishing the control further comprises determining a set of instructions for controlling each vehicle; generate a mission plan for a first vehicle of the at least one vehicle based on a request from a node when the request is valid, wherein the request indicates at least a first location and a second location; send, to the first vehicle, control instructions for navigating to the first location based on the mission plan; and send, to the first vehicle, control instructions for navigating from the first location to the second location based on the mission plan, when the vehicle is at the first location.

Claims

1. An apparatus for centralized control of a vehicle, comprising:

a processing circuitry; and

a memory, the memory containing instructions that, when executed by the processing circuitry, configure the apparatus to;

establish control of at least one vehicle, wherein establishing the control further comprises determining a set of instructions for controlling each vehicle, wherein the apparatus is configured to control each vehicle based on the respective set of instructions;

generate a mission plan for a first vehicle of the at least one vehicle based on a request from a node when the request is valid, wherein the request indicates at least a first location and a second location;

determine, for the node, a subset of the set of instructions for controlling the vehicle, wherein the subset includes at least one allowable instruction for the node;

send, to the first vehicle, control instructions for navigating to the first location based on the mission plan; and

send, to the first vehicle, control instructions for navigating from the first location to the second location based on the mission plan, when the vehicle is at the first location, wherein the request is valid when the subset of instructions for the node includes the control instructions for navigating to the first location and the control instructions for navigating from the first location to the second location, wherein the request is not valid when any of the control instructions for navigating to the first location and the control instructions for navigating from the first location to the second location includes at least one instruction that is not one of the at least one allowable instruction for the node.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the request is valid when the node is authorized.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus is further configured to:

select the first vehicle to execute the mission plan.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the first vehicle is selected based on the mission plan and at least one of:

a geographical location of each of the at least one vehicle, an availability of each of the at least one vehicle, a capability of each of the at least one vehicle and an amount of fuel of each of the at least one vehicle, an amount of power of each of the at least one vehicle.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the control instructions for navigating to the first location further include instructions for accepting a payload when the vehicle is at the first location.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the control instructions for navigating from the first location to the second location further include instructions for releasing a payload when the vehicle is at the second location.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the control is established via a vehicle system of the vehicle, wherein the established control is exclusive control, wherein the vehicle system is configured to execute only instructions from the apparatus.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the node is a user device, wherein the first location and the second location are based on user inputs from the user device.

9. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions for causing a processing circuitry to perform a process, the process comprising:

establishing control of at least one vehicle, wherein establishing the control further comprises determining a set of instructions for controlling each vehicle, wherein the apparatus is configured to control each vehicle based on the respective set of instructions;

generating a mission plan for a first vehicle of the at least one vehicle based on a request from a node when the request is valid, wherein the request indicates at least a first location and a second location;

determining, for the node, a subset of the set of instructions for controlling the vehicle, wherein the subset includes at least one allowable instruction for the node;

sending, to the first vehicle, control instructions for navigating to the first location based on the mission plan; and

sending, to the first vehicle, control instructions for navigating from the first location to the second location based on the mission plan, when the vehicle is at the first location, wherein the request is valid when the subset of instructions for the node includes the control instructions for navigating to the first location and the control instructions for navigating from the first location to the second location, wherein the request is not valid when any of the control instructions for navigating to the first location and the control instructions for navigating from the first location to the second location includes at least one instruction that is not one of the at least one allowable instruction for the node.

10. A method for centralized control of a vehicle, comprising:

establishing control of at least one vehicle, wherein establishing the control further comprises determining a set of instructions for controlling each vehicle, wherein the apparatus is configured to control each vehicle based on the respective set of instructions;

generating a mission plan for a first vehicle of the at least one vehicle based on a request from a node when the request is valid, wherein the request indicates at least a first location and a second location;

determining, for the node, a subset of the set of instructions for controlling the vehicle, wherein the subset includes at least one allowable instruction for the node;

sending, to the first vehicle, control instructions for navigating to the first location based on the mission plan; and

sending, to the first vehicle, control instructions for navigating from the first location to the second location based on the mission plan, when the vehicle is at the first location, wherein the request is valid when the subset of instructions for the node includes the control instructions for navigating to the first location and the control instructions for navigating from the first location to the second location, wherein the request is not valid when any of the control instructions for navigating to the first location and the control instructions for navigating from the first location to the second location includes at least one instruction that is not one of the at least one allowable instruction for the node.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the request is valid when the node is authorized.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

selecting the first vehicle to execute the mission plan.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the first vehicle is selected based on the mission plan and at least one of:

a geographical location of each of the at least one vehicle, an availability of each of the at least one vehicle, a capability of each of the at least one vehicle and an amount of fuel of each of the at least one vehicle, an amount of power of each of the at least one vehicle.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the control instructions for navigating to the first location further include instructions for accepting a payload when the vehicle is at the first location.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein the control instructions for navigating from the first location to the second location further include instructions for releasing a payload when the vehicle is at the second location.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein the control is established via a vehicle system of the vehicle, wherein the established control is exclusive control, wherein the vehicle system is configured to execute only instructions from the apparatus.

17. The method of claim 10, wherein the node is a user device, wherein the first location and the second location are based on user inputs from the user device.