Task management of autonomous product delivery vehicles

• US 10,331,123 B2
• Filed: 07/18/2018
• Issued: 06/25/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 07/20/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Walmart Apollo, LLC (WalMart Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Walmart Apollo, LLC (WalMart Inc.)
• Inventors: Mattingly, Todd D., High, Donald R., Wilkinson, Bruce W., Jurich, Jr., Joseph, McHale, Brian G., Cantrell, Robert L., O'Brien, John J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Ismail, Mahmoud S
• Application Number:
  US16/039,118
• Publication Number:
  US 20190025817A1
• Time in Patent Office: 342 Days
• Field of Search: 701 23, 701 2, 700245
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/00 Control of position, course, altitude or attitude of land, water, air or space vehicles, e.g. using automatic pilots drive control systems specially adapted for autonomous road vehicles B60W60/00
• 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 1/0088 characterized by the autonomous decision making process, e.g. artificial intelligence, predefined behaviours using knowledge based models G06N5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/104 involving a plurality of aircrafts, e.g. formation flying traffic control systems for aircraft G08G5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/27 Replication, distribution or synchronisation of data between databases or within a distributed database system; Distributed database system architectures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/08 Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/083 Shipping
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/40 Business processes related to the transportation industry shipping G06Q10/083
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/00 Registering or indicating the working of vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/84 Vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/06 the encryption apparatus using shift registers or memories for block-wise or stream coding, e.g. DES systems or RC4; Hash functions; Pseudorandom sequence generators
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0637 Modes of operation, e.g. cipher block chaining [CBC], electronic codebook [ECB] or Galois/counter mode [GCM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/08 Key distribution or management, e.g. generation, sharing or updating, of cryptographic keys or passwords network architectures or network communication protocols for supporting key management in a packet data network H04L63/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0825 using asymmetric-key encryption or public key infrastructure [PKI], e.g. key signature or public key certificates
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3239 involving non-keyed hash functions, e.g. modification detection codes [MDCs], MD5, SHA or RIPEMD
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/50 using hash chains, e.g. blockchains or hash trees

Abstract

Systems, apparatuses, and methods are provided herein for autonomous vehicles task management and organization. A system for organizing autonomous product delivery vehicles comprises a locomotion system of a first autonomous vehicle, a communication device, a memory device, and a control circuit. The control circuit being configured to retrieve one or more vehicle tasks assigned to the first autonomous vehicle from a hash chain database, decrypt the task parameters with a private key of the first autonomous vehicle stored on the memory device, identify a second autonomous vehicle as a transferee of the one or more vehicle tasks based on transfer rules in the task parameters, and update the hash chain database with a new block comprising a hash of preceding data in the hash chain database and the task parameters of the one or more vehicle tasks encrypted with a public key of the second autonomous vehicle.

Claims

1. A system for organizing autonomous product delivery vehicles comprising:

a locomotion system of a first autonomous vehicle;

a communication device configured to communicate with other autonomous vehicles in an autonomous vehicle fleet comprising at least the first autonomous vehicle;

a memory device; and

a control circuit of the first autonomous vehicle coupled to the communication device and the memory device, the control circuit being configured to;

retrieve one or more vehicle tasks assigned to the first autonomous vehicle from a hash chain database associated with the autonomous vehicle fleet, wherein task parameters of the one or more vehicle tasks are at least partially encrypted with a public key of the first autonomous vehicle;

decrypt the task parameters with a private key of the first autonomous vehicle stored on the memory device;

determine whether to perform the one or more vehicle tasks with the locomotion system of the first autonomous vehicle;

detect a task transfer condition for the one or more vehicle tasks;

identify, automatically by the first autonomous vehicle in response to the task transfer condition, a second autonomous vehicle as a transferee of the one or more vehicle tasks based on transfer rules in the task parameters; and

update, via the communication device, the hash chain database with a new block comprising a hash of preceding data in the hash chain database and the task parameters of the one or more vehicle tasks encrypted with a public key of the second autonomous vehicle.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the new block further comprises vehicle state parameters of the first autonomous vehicle, and wherein the second autonomous vehicle is configured to apply the vehicle state parameters of the first autonomous vehicle to the second autonomous vehicle to perform the one or more vehicle tasks.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the new block further comprises task status information for the one or more vehicle tasks, the task status information being configured to allow the second autonomous vehicle to resume a partially completed task.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the hash chain database is stored on a remote server and the first autonomous vehicle is configured to retrieve the hash chain database and/or the one or more vehicle tasks from the remote server via the communication device.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the hash chain database is stored on a distributed database comprising onboard memory devices of a plurality of autonomous vehicles in the autonomous vehicle fleet.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the update to the hash chain database comprises a database update broadcasted to one or more autonomous vehicles in the autonomous vehicle fleet via the communication device.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the hash chain database comprises a blockchain in which each block corresponds to a vehicle task.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein one or more blocks in the hash chain database comprises autonomous vehicle capability and status information, and the second autonomous vehicle is identified as the transferee of the one or more vehicle tasks based on the autonomous vehicle capability and status information stored in the hash chain database.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the control circuit is further configured to authenticate the second autonomous vehicle as a member of the autonomous vehicle fleet based on vehicle registry information stored in the hash chain database and prevent unauthorized access and/or modification of the hash chain database.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the task transfer condition is determined based on one or more of:

other assigned tasks, fuel level, vehicle condition, vehicle location, vehicle capability, weather condition, and task requirements.

11. A method for organizing autonomous product delivery vehicles comprising:

retrieving, with a control circuit of a first autonomous vehicle, one or more vehicle tasks assigned to the first autonomous vehicle from a hash chain database associated with an autonomous vehicle fleet, wherein task parameters of the one or more vehicle tasks is at least partially encrypted with a public key of the first autonomous vehicle;

decrypting, with the control circuit, the task parameters with a private key of the first autonomous vehicle stored on a memory device of the first autonomous vehicle;

determining whether to perform the one or more vehicle tasks with a locomotion system of the first autonomous vehicle;

detecting, with the control circuit, a task transfer condition for the one or more vehicle tasks;

identifying, automatically by the first autonomous vehicle in response to the task transfer condition, a second autonomous vehicle as a transferee of the one or more vehicle tasks based on transfer rules in the task parameters; and

update, via a communication device of the control circuit, the hash chain database with a new block comprising a hash of preceding data in the hash chain database and the task parameters of the one or more vehicle tasks encrypted with a public key of the second autonomous vehicle.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the new block further comprises vehicle state parameters of the first autonomous vehicle, and wherein the second autonomous vehicle is configured to apply the vehicle state parameters of the first autonomous vehicle to the second autonomous vehicle to perform the one or more vehicle tasks.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the new block further comprises task status information for the one or more vehicle tasks, the task status information being configured to allow the second autonomous vehicle to resume a partially completed task.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the hash chain database is stored on a remote server and the first autonomous vehicle is configured to retrieve the hash chain database and/or the one or more vehicle tasks from the remote server via the communication device.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the hash chain database is stored on a distributed database comprising onboard memory devices of a plurality of autonomous vehicles in the autonomous vehicle fleet.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the update to the hash chain database comprises a database update broadcasted to one or more autonomous vehicles in the autonomous vehicle fleet via the communication device.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein the hash chain database comprises a blockchain in which each block corresponds to a vehicle task.

18. The method of claim 11, wherein one or more blocks in the hash chain database comprises autonomous vehicle capability and status information, and the second autonomous vehicle is identified as the transferee of the one or more vehicle tasks based on the autonomous vehicle capability and status information stored in the hash chain database.

19. The method of claim 11, wherein the task transfer condition is determined based on one or more of:

other assigned tasks, fuel level, vehicle condition, vehicle location, vehicle capability, weather condition, and task requirements.

20. A system for organizing autonomous product delivery vehicles comprising:

an autonomous vehicle fleet comprising a plurality of autonomous vehicles, wherein each of the plurality of autonomous vehicles comprises;

a locomotion system;

a communication device configured to communicate with other autonomous vehicles in the autonomous vehicle fleet;

a memory device; and

a control circuit coupled to the communication device and the memory device, the control circuit being configured to;

retrieve one or more vehicle tasks assigned to a first autonomous vehicle from a hash chain database associated with the autonomous vehicle fleet, wherein task parameters of the one or more vehicle tasks are at least partially encrypted with a public key of the first autonomous vehicle;

decrypt the task parameters with a private key of the first autonomous vehicle stored on the memory device;

determine whether to perform the one or more vehicle tasks with the locomotion system of the first autonomous vehicle;

detect a task transfer condition for the one or more vehicle tasks;

identify, automatically by the first autonomous vehicle in response to the task transfer condition, a second autonomous vehicle as a transferee of the one or more vehicle tasks based on transfer rules in the task parameters; and

update, via the communication device, the hash chain database with a new block comprising a hash of preceding data in the hash chain database and the task parameters of the one or more vehicle tasks encrypted with a public key of the second autonomous vehicle.