Drone-to-drone information exchange

• US 10,555,152 B2
• Filed: 09/28/2017
• Issued: 02/04/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 09/28/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Shaw, Venson, Dowlatkhah, Sangar
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Tu T
• Application Number:
  US15/718,717
• Publication Number:
  US 20190098433A1
• Time in Patent Office: 859 Days
• Field of Search: 709217
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0022 characterised by the communication link data switching networks in general H04L12/00
• 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: G06Q 20/381 Currency conversion
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/024 Guidance services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/46 for vehicle-to-vehicle communication [V2V]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]

Abstract

Systems and methods for cooperation among multiple drones include two or more drones in cooperation with each other, in which a first drone may provide data of interest, processing capabilities, or physical capabilities to a second drone requesting such data or capabilities. A method may include collecting, at the first drone, sensor data associated with a monitored object of interest, and receiving a request for sensor data from the second drone. The first drone may transmit an acceptance to the request, and reformat the sensor data by removing identifiable characteristics from the sensor data to create a result set of sensor data. The first drone may then transmit the result set of sensor data to the second drone.

Claims

1. An apparatus, comprising:

a first unmanned aerial vehicle comprising a first communications interface, a first non-transitory storage, and a first processor having a first compute capacity;

a second unmanned aerial vehicle comprising a second communications interface, a second non-transitory storage, and a second processor having a second compute capacity;

a currency exchange system, comprising at least a non-transitory storage storing account information associated with each of the first and second unmanned aerial vehicles and a currency exchange system processor;

wherein the first processor is configured to execute instructions to perform operations comprising;

transmitting a processing request for assistance to the second unmanned aerial vehicle, the processing request for assistance associated with a processing task;

receiving an acceptance corresponding to the processing request for assistance from the second unmanned aerial vehicle;

dividing the processing task into a first sub-task and a second sub-task, wherein the first compute capacity is sufficient to perform the first sub-task;

and

transmit an original data set to the second unmanned aerial vehicle corresponding to the second sub-task;

wherein the second processor is configured to execute instructions to perform operations comprising;

transmitting, to the first unmanned aerial vehicle and responsive to the request for assistance, the acceptance corresponding to the request for assistance; and

transmitting a result data set responsive to the original data set to the first unmanned aerial vehicle, the result data set corresponding to the performance of the second sub-task by the second unmanned aerial vehicle.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein transmitting an original data set to the second unmanned aerial vehicle further comprises:

transmitting an identification of required data in a pull request; and

wherein transmitting a result data set to the first unmanned aerial vehicle comprises;

removing personally identifiable characteristics from observation data stored by the second unmanned aerial vehicle to create a reformatted subset of observation data; and

responsive to the identification of required data in the pull request, transmit the reformatted subset of observation data to the first unmanned aerial vehicle.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein transmitting the identification of required data in the pull request further includes transmitting one or more topics associated with the required data.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein transmitting a request for assistance to the second unmanned aerial vehicle comprises broadcasting the request for assistance to plurality of unmanned aerial vehicles including at least the second unmanned aerial vehicle.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the original data set further comprises a currency amount offered to the second unmanned aerial vehicle;

and wherein the currency exchange system processor is configured to debit an account associated with the first unmanned aerial vehicle and credit an account associated with a second unmanned aerial vehicle responsive to the transmission of the result set by the second unmanned aerial vehicle.

6. A non-transitory machine-readable medium having stored thereon machine-readable instructions executable to cause a machine to perform operations comprising:

collecting, at a first drone, sensor data associated with a monitored object of interest;

receiving, at the first drone, a request for sensor data from a second drone,

transmitting an acceptance to the request for sensor data;

reformatting the sensor data associated with the monitored object of interest, wherein reformatting includes at least removing identifiable characteristics from the sensor data associated with the monitored object of interest and adjusting a schema of the sensor data, and wherein the reformatting creates a result set of sensor data; and

transmitting, to the second drone, the result set of sensor data.

7. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 6, the operations further comprising:

autonomously navigating, by the first drone, to a location identified by the second drone responsive to the request for sensor data.

8. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 6, wherein the request for sensor data from the second drone includes an identification of one or more topics of interest corresponding to the requested sensor data, and transmitting the result set of sensor data further comprises transmitting the result set of sensor data corresponding to the one or more topics of interest.

9. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 6, wherein the request for sensor data from the second drone is received as part of a broadcast to a plurality of drones.

10. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 6, wherein the request for sensor data further includes a request to perform a processing task on the sensor data associated with the monitored object of interest.

11. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 6, wherein the acceptance to the request for sensor data further comprises a desired currency amount, and wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving a notification of a credit to an account associated with the first drone in the amount of the desired currency amount.

12. A method of communications among a plurality of drones, the method comprising:

collecting, at a first drone, sensor data associated with a monitored object of interest;

receiving, at the first drone, a request for sensor data from a second drone,

transmitting an acceptance to the request for sensor data;

reformatting the sensor data associated with the monitored object of interest, wherein reformatting includes at least removing identifiable characteristics from the sensor data associated with the monitored object of interest and adjusting a schema of the sensor data, and wherein the reformatting creates a result set of sensor data; and

transmitting, to the second drone, the result set of sensor data.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

autonomously navigating, by the first drone, to a location identified by the second drone responsive to the request for sensor data.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the request for sensor data from the second drone includes an identification of one or more topics of interest corresponding to the requested sensor data, and transmitting the result set of sensor data further comprises transmitting the result set of sensor data corresponding to the one or more topics of interest.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the request for sensor data from the second drone is received as part of a broadcast to a plurality of drones.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the request for sensor data further includes a request to perform a processing task on the sensor data associated with the monitored object of interest.

17. The method of claim 12, wherein the acceptance to the request for sensor data further comprises a desired currency amount, and wherein the method further comprises:

receiving a notification of a credit to an account associated with the first drone in the amount of the desired currency amount.

18. The method of claim 12, wherein the request for sensor data from the second drone further comprises an offered currency amount, and wherein the method further comprises:

transmitting, within the acceptance to the request for sensor data, a negotiated currency amount; and

receiving, at the first drone, an acceptance from the second drone corresponding to the negotiated currency amount.

19. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

transmitting, to a third drone monitoring the object of interest, the request for sensor data;

aggregating sensor data received from the third drone and collected sensor data; and

wherein removing identifiable characteristics and transmitting are performed on the aggregated sensor data.