System for communication in a drone system

• US 10,469,160 B2
• Filed: 09/25/2017
• Issued: 11/05/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 09/26/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Safran Electronics & Defense
• Original Assignee: Safran Electronics & Defense
• Inventors: Todeschini, Eric
• Primary Examiner(s): Neff, Michael R
• Application Number:
  US16/331,838
• Publication Number:
  US 20190253138A1
• Time in Patent Office: 771 Days
• Field of Search: 375262
• CPC Class Codes: B64U 2101/30 for imaging, photography or videography
• CPC Class Codes: B64U 2201/20 Remote controls
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/26 at least one of which is mobile
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/2643 using time-division multiple access [TDMA] H04B7/2615, H04B7/2618 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0044 allocation of payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0085 when channel conditions change
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/1469 using time-sharing

Abstract

Communication system, used in a drone system, based on a communication system of the TDMA type in which the time is divided into a plurality of temporal breakdown hierarchy levels. All the hierarchy levels being suitable for complying with a plurality of constraints related to the drone system comprising a first constraint meaning that each communication between a drone and a station controlling the drone system must be compatible with a conversation audio data transmission, a second constraint meaning that the control station must be capable of controlling a predefined number of drones simultaneously and a third constraint meaning that, the drone system using transmissions by bursts, each burst must be transmitted over a stationary channel.

Claims

1. A communication system included in a pilotless mobile device system comprising a control station and at least one pilotless mobile device, enabling each pilotless mobile device to communicate with the control station using a medium-access technique of the time division multiple access type in which each communication takes place in frames, wherein:

a frame duration is defined for each frame used in the communication system so as to obtain latency times in each communication between each pilotless mobile device and the base station that are compatible with a transmission of conversation audio data;

each frame being divided into a plurality of timeslots comprising a first timeslot enabling the control station to transmit a first signal designating a pilotless mobile device and enabling each pilotless mobile device to synchronise on a time reference given by the control station, a second timeslot enabling the pilotless mobile device designated by the first signal to transmit a second signal enabling it thus to acknowledge its presence in the pilotless mobile device system, and a succession of timeslots comprising a number of timeslots dependent on a maximum number of pilotless mobile devices that can be controlled by the control station in the pilotless mobile device system, the timeslots in the succession of timeslots being used to exchange useful data between each pilotless mobile device and the control station; and

each timeslot is divided into a plurality of burst intervals with a duration making it possible to obtain a stationary channel during said duration.

2. The communication system according to claim 1, wherein the control station comprises a plurality of sectoral antennas each covering a predefined sector in the vicinity of said plurality and in that the frames used in said system are organised in a succession of groups of consecutive frames, each group of frames being organised in a group structure associating each frame with a pair formed by an antenna of the control station and of a pilotless mobile device included in the pilotless mobile device system, each possible pair being associated with a different frame in the group of frames according to a position of said frame in said group, information representing the group structure being shared between the control station and each pilotless mobile device.

3. The communication system according to claim 2, wherein, for each frame, information representing characteristics of the timeslots included in said frame is shared by the control station and each pilotless mobile device, this information comprising, for each timeslot, information representing burst interval numbers included in the timeslot, an identifier of a device from among the control station or each pilotless mobile device being able to transmit useful data during said timeslot and an identifier of a device from among the control station or each pilotless mobile device being able to receive useful data during said timeslot.

4. The communication system according to claim 2, wherein the information representing characteristics of timeslots included in said frame further comprises, for each timeslot, an identifier of a coding rate of an error correcting code applied to the useful data transmitted during said timeslot.

5. The communication system according to claim 1, wherein each burst interval is divided into a plurality of periods comprising a period used for transmitting a sequence of symbols enabling the control station or the pilotless mobile device receiving said sequence of symbols to make a channel estimation in order to carry out synchronisations of frequency, phase and timing and reception signal equalisations and/or a period making it possible to transmit data representing a burst interval number.

6. The communication system according to claim 1, wherein the control station and each pilotless mobile device comprise a transmission module comprising:

a channel coding module comprising an LDPC (low density parity check) coding module used for coding the useful data transmitted during a timeslot and a BCH (Bose, Ray-Chaudhuri and Hocquenghem) coding module used for coding the data representing a burst interval number;

a baseband filtering module of the Gaussian filter type; and

a minimum-shift continuous-phase modulation module; and

a reception module comprising;

a baseband filtering module suitable for ensuring baseband selectivity;

a module for demodulation of a minimum-shift continuous-phase modulation;

a BCH decoding module; and

an LDPC decoding module.

7. The communication system according to claim 2, wherein the transmission module further comprises a transmission security module using a frequency hopping technique, and the reception module further comprises a reciprocal transmission security module corresponding to the transmission security module;

and

the information representing characteristics of timeslots included in said frame further comprises, for each timeslot, an identifier of a frequency channel number used by the transmission security module.

8. The communication system according to claim 6, wherein the LDPC coding module is followed by a time interleaving module of the row/column type and the LDPC decoding module is preceded by a time deinterleaving module of the row/column type.