REMOTE PROVISIONING OF A DRONE RESOURCE

• US 20160357183A1
• Filed: 06/05/2015
• Published: 12/08/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/05/2015
• 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
• Granted Patent: US 10,162,351 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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: G06Q 30/0645 Rental transactions; Leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0175 by photographing vehicles, e.g. when violating traffic rules
• 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

Abstract

Remote provision of a drone resource is disclosed. A user equipment (UE) can generate a request for drone resources that can be employed to find an appropriate drone from a set of drones. The drone can be automatically provisioned to allow access to the drone resource in accord with the request. The set of drones can comprise different tiers of drones. A response can be generated indicating the state of provisioning a drone in accord with the request. The user equipment can make the request available to a drone allocation component via a communication framework that can comprise a wireless interface. Provisioning of the drone can similarly be accomplished via the communication framework. As such, the set of drones can be distributed and can be provisioned from a UE located remotely from the drone allocation component and/or the drones comprising the set of drones.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, facilitate performance of operations, comprising;

receiving, via a user equipment, a request for allocation of a drone resource;

determining a metric value associated with the request based on a rule related to scoring requests comprising the request with respect to drones comprising a drone associated with the drone resource;

provisioning the drone based on the request for allocation of the drone resource based on the metric value; and

enabling access by the user equipment to the drone resource associated with the drone in accord with the request.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the rule enables prioritizing, via the metric value, provisioning of the drone relative to another request for allocation of the drone resource from another user equipment.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the metric value enabling the prioritizing is determined from an ordering rule different from the scoring rule and related to an order in which the request and the other request were received, a subscription tier associated with the user equipment, another subscription tier associated with the other user equipment, a location associated with the request in comparison to another location associated with the other request, and a count of requests for allocation of the drone resource.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the receiving the request is via a wireless interface.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the receiving the request is via a wired interface.

6. The system of claim 5, further comprising generating response information related to a state of provisioning the drone.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the response information comprises a request for additional information related to allocating the drone resource.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the additional information comprises selection information related to selection of the drone from at least two drones.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the at least two drones comprise a first drone of a first hierarchical tier of drones and a second drone of a second hierarchical tier of drones.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the provisioning the drone comprises provisioning the first drone of the first hierarchical tier of drones.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the provisioning the drone comprises provisioning the second drone of the second hierarchical tier of drones.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the provisioning the drone comprises provisioning the second drone of the second hierarchical tier of drones in response to not provisioning the drone from the first hierarchical tier of drones.

13. A method, comprising:

receiving, by a system comprising a processor, a request, via a network device, for allocation of a drone resource of a communications network;

determining, by the system, a ranking of a drone of drones associated with the drone resource, wherein the ranking is based on a parameter based on the request and a characteristic of the drone; and

provisioning, by the system, the drone based on the request for allocation of the drone resource and the ranking.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the determining the ranking further comprises determining the ranking based on the parameter determined from the request and another characteristic of the drone resource associated with the drone.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising facilitating, by the system, access to the drone resource in accord with the request as part of executing a mission of the drone.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the ranking enables ordering of the drone relative to another drone, of the drones, associated with another drone ranking based on the parameter determined form the request and another characteristic of the other drone.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein the ranking enables ordering of the request for allocation of the drone resource relative to another request for the drone resource to enable the provisioning to further provision the drone associated with the drone resource based on the ordering.

18. A computer readable storage device comprising executable instructions that, in response to execution, cause a system comprising a processor to perform operations, comprising:

receiving a request for allocation of a drone resource via a network device;

determining a ranking score of a drone associated with the drone resource, wherein the ranking score is based on a parameter determined from the request and a characteristic of the drone resource;

selecting the drone based on the ranking score; and

provisioning the drone based on the request for allocation of the drone resource.

19. The computer readable storage device of claim 18, wherein the selecting the drone comprises selecting the drone from a group of drones comprising a first hierarchical tier of drones and a second hierarchical tier of drones.

20. The computer readable storage device of claim 18, wherein the determining the ranking score based on the parameter comprises determining a scheduling parameter based on schedule information of a profile associated with a user.